{"id":310961,"date":"2019-04-01T14:04:06","date_gmt":"2019-04-01T14:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=310961"},"modified":"2019-04-01T14:04:06","modified_gmt":"2019-04-01T14:04:06","slug":"facebook-removes-687-pages-accounts-linked-to-congress-ahead-of-lok-sabha-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/facebook-removes-687-pages-accounts-linked-to-congress-ahead-of-lok-sabha-polls\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook removes 687 pages, accounts linked to Congress ahead of Lok Sabha Polls"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Facebook Inc on Monday said it had removed 687 pages and accounts linked to India\u2019s main opposition Congress party because of \u201ccoordinated inauthentic behaviour\u201d on the social media platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe removed 687 Facebook Pages and accounts \u2014 the majority of which had already been detected and suspended by our automated systems \u2014 that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour in India and were linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress (INC),\u201d the statement said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Facebook said its investigation found that individuals used fake accounts and joined various groups to disseminate their content and increase engagement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reacting to Facebook action, the Congress party took to its Twitter account and tweeted, \u201cThis is to clarify no official pages run by INC have been taken down. Additionally, all pages run by our verified volunteers are also unaffected. In the meantime, we are awaiting a response from Facebook to provide us a list of all pages\/accounts that they have taken down.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Apart from this, Facebook has also removed 103 pages, groups and accounts on its platform and Instagram for engaging in similar behaviour as part of a network that originated in Pakistan.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe removed 103 Pages, Groups and accounts on both Facebook and Instagram for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour as part of a network that originated in Pakistan,\u201d it said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook Nathaniel Gleicher said that the removal was not based on the content that was shared by these pages and groups.\u00a0It was based on their behaviour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are constantly working to detect and stop coordinated inauthentic behaviour because we don\u2019t want our services to be used to manipulate people.\u00a0We\u2019re taking down these Pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they posted.\u00a0In 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,\u201d Gleicher added.<\/span><\/p>\n

India\u2019s Lok Sabha elections are scheduled to begin on April 11 and will end on May 19.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Facebook Inc on Monday said it had removed 687 pages and accounts linked to India\u2019s main opposition Congress party because of \u201ccoordinated inauthentic behaviour\u201d on the social media platform. \u201cWe removed 687 Facebook Pages and accounts \u2014 the majority of which had already been detected and suspended by our automated systems \u2014 that engaged in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":306912,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,1801],"tags":[236,600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310961"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310962,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310961\/revisions\/310962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/306912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}