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Updated April 1st, 2019 at 23:31 IST

'Used to spread falsehood against Modi govt', says Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Facebook's crackdown on Congress 'spam' pages

Hours after social-networking platform Facebook removed 687 pages linked to the IT cell of the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress party, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad termed it as a historic day.

Reported by: Navashree Nandini
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Hours after social-networking platform Facebook removed 687 pages linked to the IT cell of the Rahul Gandhi-led Congress party, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad termed it as a 'historic day'.

Prasad lashed out at the Congress Party, and said that the Party is desperate and hence resorting to such means. 

“Today a very historical development has taken place. Owners of those accounts were not known. It was fake. It was used to spread falsehood against Narendra Modi government."

Facebook on Monday removed 687 pages and accounts that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour, many of which were associated to the IT cell of Congress. Additionally, it also removed 103 accounts and pages linked to a Pakistan-origin network.

READ: BIG Embarrassment: 687 Congress-linked Pages, Pakistan-origin Network Removed By Facebook In 'coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour' Crackdown

Prasad further added:

"When inquiry was done, it was found that those individuals were linked to Congress IT cell. Congress is desperate therefore they are resorting to these types of dubious means to claim support but people are sure of what they have seen during five years of Narendra Modi governement."

WATCH: Congress' First Statement After Facebook Bans 687 Accounts Linked To Its IT Cell

On the other hand, Congress party posted a clarification about the issue and said that they will look into the matter:

As per Facebook, here are the numbers:

  • Presence on Facebook: 138 Pages and 549 Facebook accounts.
  • Followers: About 206,000 accounts followed one or more of these Pages.
  • Advertising: Around $39,000 USD in spending for ads on Facebook, paid for in Indian rupees. The first ad ran in August 2014 and the most recent ad ran in March 2019.

Facebook wrote a detailed post on the micro-blogging platform elaborating on the same.

"We removed 687 Facebook Pages and accounts — the majority of which had already been detected and suspended by our automated systems — that engaged in coordinated inauthentic behavior in India and were linked to individuals associated with an IT Cell of the Indian National Congress (INC)," wrote Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Policy at Facebook in an elaborate post on the social media platform.

READ: Embarrassed Congress Issues Clarification After Facebook's 'coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour' Crackdown

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Published April 1st, 2019 at 18:20 IST

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