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Monday 1 April 2019

Facebook takes down pages backed by Pak Army for spamming, using fake IDs

Of the 103 content sources, 24 were Facebook pages, 57 were Facebook accounts, seven were groups and 15 were Instagram accounts, the note said.

Facebook logo is reflected in glasses in this picture illustration. (Photo: Reuters)
Facebook logo is reflected in glasses in this picture illustration. (Photo: Reuters)
A month after Balakot airstrike that escalated tensions between India and Pakistan, Facebook on Monday took down 103 pages, groups, and accounts which were linked to the employees of Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR) -- a publicity wing of the Pakistani Army.
According to the press note shared by Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cyber security policy at Facebook, all the pages, accounts and groups have been taken down because they violated Facebook's "policies on coordinated inauthentic behaviour or spam".
The individuals involved in inauthentic activities on social media platforms ran "military fan pages, pages of Pakistani interests, Kashmir community pages and hobby and news pages". The samples of the content shared by Facebook also show posts about Pakistan's army prowess after the Balakot strike.
At least 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district on February 14. Twelve days after the Pulwama attack, the Indian Air Force (IAF) bombed the Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest terror-training camp in Pakistan's Balakot.
Which pages are these:
Of the 103 content sources, 24 were Facebook pages, 57 were Facebook accounts, seven were groups and 15 were Instagram accounts, the note said.
About 2.8 million accounts followed at least one of the 24 pages, about 4,700 accounts joined one of the seven groups and around 1,050 users followed at least one of the 15 Instagram accounts mentioned, the Facebook's investigation has found.
Facebook has also revealed that these pages spent around 1,100 US dollars and Pakistani rupees for advertisements between May 2015 and December 2018.
What these pages shared:
The Facebook note shared four samples of posts that were put up by pages such as 'Halka Phulka', 'Painter's Palette', 'Pakistan Army -The Best' and 'Kashmir for Kashmiris'.
The four samples show posts which were shared after the Pulwama tragedy.
The samples that these pages propelled tried showing the prowess of Pakistan and its prime minister. These pages also shared content related to local news, politics, Indian government and military, the press note said.
Of the four samples shown by Facebook, two posts showed the valour of Pakistan's army while highlighting India's defence forces in a bad light. One post showed Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan as a messenger of peace when he released IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who was in Pakistan custody for two days. The last sample showed pictures of people fighting for Kashmir's freedom.
What is inauthentic behaviour:
Using fake identities and misleading users about identity is a big no-no for Facebook.
Facebook has clearly stated that it has taken down these pages because of their "coordinated inauthentic behaviour and not the content that they shared".
According to Facebook's investigation, Pakistani individuals who were coordinating to carry out inauthentic activities used fake IDs.
"We didn't find any links between the campaigns we've removed today, but they used similar tactics by creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were and what they were doing," the statement added.
The individuals tried their best to conceal their identities but investigations conducted by Facebook exposed them of being linked to employees of the publicity wing of Pakistan's military.
This is not the first time that Facebook has taken down such pages. Earlier too, it took similar measures in Romania and the United Kingdom ahead of their respective elections, citing "inauthentic activities".
Pakistan military spokesperson completely silent:
Though Facebook has shared relevant information with policymakers and technology platforms, the official spokesperson of the Pakistan Armed Forces, Asif Ghafoor, has been completely silent on the issue. Ghafoor is also the director general of the publicity wing whose employees have been accused of making fake IDs.
Ghafoor is quite active on Twitter and has two accounts - official and personal. Not a single tweet on the issue has been posted from either of the handles till the time of filing the story, putting the employees of his organisation in a bad light.

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