Facebook takes down 103 pages and accounts allegedly linked with ISPR employees
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ISLAMABAD - Facebook has taken down 103 pages, groups, and accounts of Pakistani origin on for being involved in “coordinated inauthentic behavior”.
The social media giant revealed that these ‘assets’ were linked to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) employees. It cleared that the company has no issue with these pages or groups’ content, rather it was their conduct that violated Facebook’s policies.
Facebook shared details on ‘four separate, distinct, and unconnected’ takedowns linked to both Pakistan and India. The company said that it removed the accounts, pages, and groups put by the networks “for violating Facebook’s policies on coordinated inauthentic behavior or spam”.
The company has removed 103 pages, groups, and accounts on both Facebook and Instagram for being part of a Pakistan-originated network.
It has removed 687 pages and accounts belonging to individuals connected to an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress. Other removed pages and accounts amount to 321 and originate from India for violating Facebook rules against spam.
“Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found that it was linked to employees of the ISPR of the Pakistani military,” said a statement issued by company head of Cybersecurity Policy, Nathaniel Gleicher.
The assets have been taken down because a network of fake accounts, that people are using to conceal their identity, were making these pages look independent, which they are not in reality.
Gleicher further said that Facebook is not sure whether the activity has been directed by the organization or the employees have been acting on their own.
