Social media giant Facebook blocks over 700 pages linked to mostly Congress IT cell

Social media giant Facebook blocks over 700 pages linked to mostly Congress IT cell, In its global bid to increase authenticity and tackle fake news and false propaganda, Facebook has removed anywhere around 680 to over 700 social media pages over “engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, said Facebook.

Using the statement to attack its opposition, BJP called on it for “spreading fake news”, Congress vehemently denied the charges.

In a tweet from its official handle, Congress IT cell issued a statement claiming none of its “official pages” or “verified accounts” were apparently blocked or removed.

 Facebook blocks over 700 pages linked:

Starting 2014, it’s a common site for Indian elections sliding into rampant hate speeches and fake news supporting either side of political spectrum and to flabbergast false propaganda. In order curb the same, Facebook has justified its so-called pre-election action against political parties.

The total pages taken down by Facebook included mere fifteen pages supporting Prime Minister Modi’s BJP, but these same pages were found to be more active and influential than opposition Congress’ one, in spreading pro-Modi right-wing narrative.

BJP-Silver Touch link : A bigger loss?

Along with most of Congress-supporting pages, accounts and groups being taken down there were some BJP supported pages taken down as well. While the total followers combined in Congress supported and BJP supported pages or profiles, a bigger loss was recorded for BJP with its influential and verified ‘Silver Touch Technologies’ account taken down as well with over 2.6 million followers, more than that of any Congress supported pages. More suspicious was the firm’s direct contract with NaMo app, an app used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to connect to people and handled by BJP IT-cell. The firm is speculated to have had links to BJP’s Gujarat campaigns as well.