Congress denies 687 Facebook pages taken down linked to the party

New Delhi : Facebook on Monday said that it has taken down around 687 pages and accounts which were linked to the Congress party. The move comes in accordance to stop fake accounts and spam.

Reacting to the announcement, the Congress said that none of its official page has been taken down.

In a tweet, the Congress said, “This is to clarify no official pages run by INC have been taken down. Additionally, all pages run by our verified volunteers are also unaffected.”

The party also asked Facebook to provide them the list of pages and accounts it has taken down linked to Congress.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari said, “We would need to verify the veracity of this. Whether there are any Facebook pages that are linked to us which are being exorcised in any manner. We’ll check and get back to you. You may never know those pages are either not linked to us or maybe the news report itself is not correct.”

The Facebook authorities found that some members joined groups using fake Ids to disseminate their content and increase engagement.

“While the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our review found that it was connected to individuals associated with an INC (Indian National Congress) IT Cell,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook, said in a statement.

“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,” he told reporters.

He asserted that the removal was not based on the content that was shared by these pages and groups. “We are constantly working to detect and stop coordinated inauthentic behaviour because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people. We’re taking down these pages and accounts based on their behaviour, not the content they posted,” he said.