New Delhi: Facebook has removed over 600 pages and accounts that were linked to individuals associated with the Congress party’s IT cell, in a crackdown on what it calls “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.

The social media giant has also removed 15 Facebook pages, groups and accounts that were linked to individuals associated with an Indian IT firm called ‘Silver Touch’.

Silver Touch, an Ahmedabad-based company, is best known for its alleged connections to Facebook page called ‘India Eye’ and for having worked for the Gujarat state government and various Central government departments. Various analyses of Silver Touch and India Eye over the last year have shown it disseminating content that is pro-Bharatiya Janata Party.

In a statement, Facebook noted that these accounts and pages were removed because their content violated any company policy but because they used fake accounts to share information.

“We are constantly working to detect and stop coordinated inauthentic behavior because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people. We’re taking down these pages and accounts based on their behavior, not the content they posted. In each case detailed below, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action,” the company said in a statement on a Monday afternoon.

Congress crackdown

Facebook has removed 687 pages and accounts that were connected to individuals associated with the Congress IT cell.

According to the company’s analysis, the individuals behind this activity used “fake accounts” and joined various groups to to disseminate their content and “increase engagement on their own pages”.

“The page admins and account owners typically posted about local news and political issues, including topics like the upcoming elections, candidate views, the INC and criticism of political opponents including the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our review found that it was connected to individuals associated with an INC IT Cell,” the company said.

The accounts and pages that were taken down had a reach of over 200,000 and had spent nearly $40,000 for running advertisements, the most recent of which ran in March 2019.

In an interaction with reporters, Facebook’s cybersecurity policy head Nathaniel Gleicher said that the company had reached out to the Congress to “educate them about what we have seen”.

“When we remove one of these networks, the reason we remove them is because of their coordinated inauthentic behaviour, that they are using network of fake accounts to conceal their identity….to mislead who’s behind them. That’s the basic reason for removal,” Gleicher said.

“We have also reached out to policy makers and government to ensure that they understand the types of behaviour we are seeing and what we are learning”.

Gujarat’s Silver Touch

Another crackdown was aimed at individuals associated with Indian IT firm Silver Touch.

According to Facebook, a small number of page admins and account owners associated with Silver Touch used a “combination of authentic and fake accounts to to share their content across a variety of pages”.

“They posted about local news and political events, including topics like the Indian government, the upcoming elections, the BJP and alleged misconduct of political opponents including the INC. Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found that this activity was linked to individuals associated with an Indian IT firm, Silver Touch,” the company said.

Silver Touch-linked individuals had a reach of over 2.6 million accounts on one page, and spent around $70,000 in advertisements, the most recent of which ran on February 2019.

Pak Army campaign on India

Facebook’s crackdown also resulted in the removal of over 100 pages, groups and accounts as part of a network that originated in Pakistan that posted on topics that included the Indian government, its political leaders and military.

“Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found that it was linked to employees of the ISPR (Inter-Service Public Relations) of the Pakistani military,” the company’s analysis noted.

(With inputs from PTI)