Facebook takes down Pakistan military backed pages targeting India ahead of LS polls

Ten days before the first phase of polling for the 2019 general elections, Facebook on Monday announced that removed and taken down multiple pages, groupsand accounts for violating the company’s policies on co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour or spam, including 103 such accounts on Facebook and Instagram, that originated in Pakistan. These accounts, Facebook added, were linked to individuals working for the publicity division of Pakistan’s military establishment, or the Inter-Services Public Relations.

The individuals from Pakistan’s military establishment, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher added, used fake accounts to operate “Military fan pages”, “general Pakistani interest Pages”, “Kashmir community pages”, and hobby and news pages.