Facebook removes support pages, groups, accounts of Pakistan Army on India’s appeal

Facebook removes support pages, groups, accounts of Pakistan Army on India’s appeal

Islamabad (APP): The Social media giant Facebook announced on Monday the groups, pages and accounts arising from Pakistan has been removed as they violated the policies of the company on coordinated inauthentic behaviour or spam.

The groups, accounts and pages were taken off in four separate takedowns, each among them were distinct and unconnected.

The Head of Cybersecurity Policy of Facebook Nathaniel Gleicher said in a statement on the website of the company that “Today we removed 103 Pages, Groups and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour on Facebook and Instagram as part of a network that originated in Pakistan.”

Nathaniel Gleicher further added about the first network that “We removed 687 Facebook Pages and accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour.” He further said that it was connected to the individuals associated with an Indian National Congress (INC) IT Cell.

The Head of Cybersecurity Policy of Facebook Nathaniel Gleicher said that “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.”

He further added that these pages and accounts were involved in behaviours which violated policies of Facebook. “This included using fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same names; impersonating someone else; posting links to malware; and posting massive amounts of content across a network of Groups and Pages in order to drive traffic to websites they are affiliated with in order to make money. Unlike the takedowns for coordinated inauthentic behaviour, this activity was not part of one coordinated operation.”

The Head of Cybersecurity Policy of Facebook Nathaniel Gleicher said in a statement that the people involved in this activity have concealed their identities, but Facebook investigation found that it was linked to employees of an institution in Pakistan that is ISPR.

 

Nathaniel Gleichner said that the employees were operating fan pages. Some 2.8 million accounts in total followed 24 pages, 57 accounts and 7 groups on Facebook adding that 15 accounts have been deleted from Instagram.

The Head of Cybersecurity Policy of Facebook Nathaniel Gleicher further added that the pages and groups that spread information about the politics and political leaders of Pakistan, Indian Government and about the Pakistani forces have been removed from Facebook and Instagram.

The Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan was praised by many other pages for promoting peace, or propagated unverified claims of shooting down of five Indian planes. “We are constantly working to detect and stop coordinated inauthentic behaviour because we don’t want our services to be used to manipulate people,” Gleichner said.

The spokesman for the subsidiary made no immediate comment when AFP contacted it.

Facebook also informed that it was removing 687 pages and accounts involved in similarly “inauthentic” behaviour that were connected to the opposition Congress party of India, which is contesting nationwide elections due to start on April 11. Congress reacted cautiously, with spokesperson Manish Tewari adding that the party “will need to verify the veracity of these reports”. A recent standoff between India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir saw a deluge of “fake news” hit social media, raising concerns over misinformation in the upcoming election in India.

India was facing criticism due to its defeat. The co commander of India accepted its defeat in Hybrid war and appraised ISPR. This was totally unacceptable for the Prime Minister if India Narendra Modi. India has always planned strategies against Pakistan and they have always gone against the Human Rights.

Facebook claimed itself about not having enough evidences against the accounts. But they removed the fan pages on Facebook claiming that they are linked with ISPR.

Every Pakistani is enthusiastic about its Army and loves them. During the Hybrid war, every Pakistani took part with even their broken cell phones to defeat India.

What does Facebook mean? Does this means that we cannot post on Facebook about our Army otherwise our accounts would be removed. This nation will find another way and others would remain.