Facebook removes 687 pages, accounts linked to Congress ahead of elections

NEW DELHI: Social media network Facebook on Monday said that it has removed 687 pages and accounts which were linked to individuals associated with the IT Cell of the opposition party Indian National Congress (INC) days before voting begins in general elections. The accounts were removed for pushing spam or inautheticated behaviour and not for the content that was being posted.

There were a total of 138 pages and 549 Facebook accounts which were found to be disseminating spam. Facebook said that about 2,06,000 accounts followed one or more of these pages. In terms of advertising, the network said that these pages and accounts collectively spent around $39,000 on advertising on its platform. The first ad ran in August 2014 and the most recent ad ran in March 2019.