Facebook deletes over 700 accounts in India and Pakistan ahead of Indian election

Facebook hasdeleted 712 accounts and 390 pages in India and Pakistan for"inauthentic behavior," it said on Monday, many linked toIndia's opposition Congress party and others related to Pakistan's military days before a nationalelection.

Facebook has come under increasing pressure aroundthe world to ensure its social media platform is not abused forpolitical purposes or to spread misinformation.

The action against accounts with alleged links to Congress,the party led by the Gandhi family that has dominated Indianpolitics for much of its post-independence era, marks a boldmove by Facebook.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his rivals useofficial Facebook accounts to send political messages tomillions of followers, thousands of unverified pages also shareposts to support or criticize politicians.

'Troubling' tactics

Among the most significant things it has removed, Facebooksaid it had taken down 549 accounts and 138 pages linked toIndia's Congress for "co-ordinated inauthentic behavior."

In a tweet, Congress said none of its official pages orthose run by its verified volunteers had been taken down.

Theparty is awaiting a response from Facebook to provide a list ofall pages and accounts which were removed, it said.

Also removed were 15 accounts linked to an Indian IT companywhich, among other things, issued posts on Modi's rulingBharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and alleged misconduct of politicalopponents including Congress, Facebook said.

"The fact that partisans on both sides resorted to suchtactics is a troubling feature," it said in a blog post.

In the face of increasing calls for tougher regulation ofonline content, Facebook has been taking similar measureselsewhere.

India-Pakistan skirmish

In Pakistan, it removed 57 accounts, 24 pages, seven groupsand 15 Instagram accounts, also for inauthentic behavior, aspart of a network that originated there and was linked toemployees of a unit of the Pakistani military.

Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan both sentwarplanes to attack each other's territory in February after asuicide bomb attack claimed by a Pakistan-based militant groupkilled 40 Indian paramilitary police in the disputed region ofKashmir. The attack also led to a deluge of fake news, anotherissue social media companies have been grappling with.

The company's review found individuals using fake accountsand issuing posts including criticism of the BJP who were"associated with an INC (Indian National Congress) IT Cell."

Two of the samples shared by Facebook were of posts thatcriticized Modi's initiatives and called for supporting theCongress party and its president, Rahul Gandhi.

Separately, Facebook removed 12 accounts and one page, plusone group and one Instagram account, which linked to individualsrelated to an Indian IT firm Silver Touch. Asked what SilverTouch's link with politics was, Gleicher told Reuters earlier itwas "associated with" a mobile app promoted by Modi's rulingBharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Ruling party not 'speculating'

After BJP's IT head, Amit Malviya, told Reuters both theparty and the app had "nothing to do with Silver Touch,"

Facebook in a new statement late on Monday said it had "seen noevidence to date of Silver Touch being associated with the NaMoApp on our platform," referring to the Narendra Modi app.

Facebook's actions on Monday also included the removal of a"pro-BJP" page called "The India Eye," which had more than 2million followers, "was strongly nationalist," a vocal supporterof Modi and a critic of Gandhi, Atlantic Council said.

Facebook said it had also removed another 227 pages and 94accounts in India for violating its policies on spam andmisrepresentation.

In Pakistan, Facebook said it removed pages and accounts onFacebook and Instagram that spread information about Pakistanipolitics, the Indian government and the Pakistani military.Those accounts were being run by employees of the Pakistanimilitary's public relations arm, the Inter Services PublicRelations (ISPR), Facebook said.

These Pakistani accounts, pages, groups and Instagramaccounts removed from Facebook had more than 2.8 million
followers.

Last week the firm removed a social media network in thePhilippines and took the unusual step of linking it to abusinessman who said he had managed the president's onlineelection campaign in 2016.

It has also taken such action recently against accounts inRussia and Iran.