Facebook purge: The curious case of pages that did not feature in FB press release

On April 1, Facebook took down thousands of pages, groups and accounts from Facebook and Instagram, describing the crackdown as “removing coordinated inauthentic behaviour and spam from India and Pakistan.” Specifying that the initiative had nothing to do with the content posted by these accounts, Facebook furthered that “the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves, and that was the basis for our action.”

While the tech giant did not provide a list of all the pages removed, it threw light on the four separate categories of the takedown –

1. 103 pages, groups and accounts originating from Pakistan.
2. 687 pages and accounts originating in India and linked to individuals associated with the Congress IT cell.
3. 15 Facebook pages, groups and accounts originating in India and linked to individuals associated with an Indian IT firm, Silver Touch.
4. 321 Facebook pages and accounts in India that broke Facebook’s rules against spam.

Congress found a place in Facebook’s release but the same could not be said about the BJP.

‘The India Eye’

BJP’s participation in ‘coordinated inauthentic behaviour’ was veiled behind the accounts linked to the IT firm, Silver Touch – the company behind Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘NaMo App’. Facebook said that it removed one page, 13 accounts and a group associated with this company. The page in question was ‘The India Eye’ – a pro-BJP propaganda outlet which used to host its corresponding website on the servers of Silver Touch. ‘The India Eye’ is also one of the 15 accounts promoted on ‘NaMo App’ where users don’t enjoy the discretion to unfollow its posts.

According to Facebook’s press note, ‘The India Eye’ alone spent over Rs 48 lakh on Facebook ads, in contrast to Rs 27 lakh spent by all the Congress-linked pages. Furthermore, the follower count of ‘The India Eye’ was more than 10 times the follower count of all Congress pages combined.

The apparent connection between Silver Touch, ‘The India Eye’ and the BJP was highlighted by Alt News in an earlier report.

Alt News analysis: Pages that didn’t feature in Facebook’s release

Alt News found that the takedown of pro-BJP pages wasn’t limited to ‘The India Eye’. We discovered hundreds of other pages which published content in favour of the ruling party and were recently removed by Facebook.

A similar observation was made with regard to pro-Congress pages. Though their number was smaller, several Congress-supporting accounts, recently taken down by Facebook, found no mention in its statement.

Methodology

Alt News has compiled an index of pages that are no longer active on Facebook and seemed to have been taken down recently. We verified the same by searching for the Google cache of each of these pages and included only those whose cache is still available on the search engine. If a page has been removed for a while, it is most likely that the cache is unavailable.

Several social media users also posted about certain pages that no longer appear on Facebook. Our list includes these post-substantiation.

Index

We discovered hundreds of pages and groups that were recently purged by the social networking platform. Due to the large number, the table below comprises only those that had over 4 lakh likes.

No	PAGE	URL	LIKES
1	भारत माता की जय	fb.com/BharatMataKiJaiPage/	6000000
2	माँ तुझे सलाम	fb.com/BharatMaaTujheSalaam/	3894042
3	बार बार मोदी सरकार - Modi Forever	fb.com/imwithmodiji	3400000
4	श्री राम जी का हर भक्त इस पेज को जरुर Like करे " जय श्री राम "	fb.com/rambhakt.nishu/	3030950
5	कहो दिल से, नरेन्द्र मोदी फिर से	fb.com/NamoPhirse	2700000
6	एक नाम नरेन्द्र मोदी.	fb.com/EkNaamModi	2400000
7	I Support Zee News	fb.com/Ab.Hoga.Asli.Nirman	2260866
8	We Support Indian Javan	fb.com/thebestarmyindianarmy/	2208942
9	हिंदुस्तानी सेना	fb.com/Weareindiansoliders/	2100000
10	I Support Doval	fb.com/I.Support.Ajit.Doval/	1785783
11	I Support Modi	fb.com/support4modi	1655698
12	Shifu Fan Club	fb.com/shifuFansClub	1556419
13	Hindu Supporters	fb.com/namosupportersofficial/	1555178
14	Insist	fb.com/Insisst	1536345
15	I am with Ravish Kumar	fb.com/IamWithRavishKumar	1500000
16	Narendra Modi Whatsapp Group	fb.com/narendramodiwhatsappNo	1435881
17	Sona Media	fb.com/SonaMedia24/likes	1400000
18	Post Card Fans	fb.com/postcard.medianews	1300000
19	YOUTH 4 UP	fb.com/bjp4up.youth/	1300000
20	Rashtra bhakt sena	fb.com/Rashtrabhaktsena	1200000
21	राष्ट्रभक्त सेना	fb.com/Rashtrabhaktsena/	1200000
22	भारत की शान नरेंद्र मोदी.	fb.com/BharatKiShaanModi	1100000
23	Thank You Akshay Kumar	fb.com/ThankYouIndianArmy	1100000
24	My Nation	fb.com/MyNationEn/	1045002
25	NaMo INDIA Club	fb.com/NaMoPMfor19	1001473
26	गर्व से कहो हम हिन्दू है	fb.com/GarvSekahoHumSabHinduHain/	1000000
27	मैं भारतीय हूँ	fb.com/MainBharatiyaHu/	1000000
28	Desi Girl	fb.com/FilmStare.Me/	1000000
29	जय माता दी	fb.com/lovematadi/	1000000
30	जय जवान	fb.com/%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%AF-%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8-1960822740825615/	966891
31	I Support Ravish Kumar	fb.com/ISupportRavishNDTVindia	964746
32	Sonia Gandhi Iron Lady	fb.com/imSoniaGandhi	932000
33	Narendra Modi - True Indian	fb.com/NaMoTrueIndian/	924044
34	मैं और मेरी शायरी	fb.com/MaiAurMeriShayarii/	872211
35	Islamic - Media	fb.com/pg/asaduddinowaiseaimim	799776
36	Rohit Sardana Fans Club	fb.com/RohitSardanaZee	785748
37	बार-बार मोदी सरकार	fb.com/modijikesath	763602
38	हिंदुस्थानी सेना हमारी शान	fb.com/supportourindianarmy/	690793
39	Jai Mata Di	fb.com/jaimatadi0001/	679000
40	We Support India	fb.com/ModiForAll	669000
41	Akshay Kumar Fanclub	fb.com/AkkiFan02	659326
42	Support BJP	fb.com/SupportBJP.org	610907
43	Vijayi Gujarat	fb.com/VijayiGujarat	603000
44	Neha Kakkar Bollywood Singer	fb.com/NehaKakkarBollySinger/	592407
45	Dainik Bharat	fb.com/DainikBharatOfficial/	579487
46	BJP Khargone Barwani	fb.com/BjpKhargoneBarwani	564000
47	Priyanka Gandhi - Next PM of India	fb.com/PriyankaGFans	539000
48	Narendra Modi Whatsapp Group	fb.com/iSupportYogi4PM	532000
49	T Raja Singh	fb.com/RajaSinghOfficial/	525768
50	अगर आप मारवाड़ी हो तो यह पेज लाइक करो देखते है फेसबुक पर कितने मारवाड़ी है ?	fb.com/hdmarwadi	508000
51	भारतीय जवान	fb.com/BSOfficial8/	493000
52	Hardik Pandya Voice of India	fb.com/Hardik-Pandya-Voice-of-India-1592526384122669	478353
53	Narendra Modi: The PM With A Difference	fb.com/NarendraModiThePMWithADifference	474186
54	KIRAN YADAV	fb.com/KIRAN-YADAV-912475038917798/	447203
55	Gujarat Information	fb.com/gujaratinformation.official	446261
56	P.M Narendra Modi.	fb.com/pmnarendramodii/	424256
57	I am with Ravish Kumar	fb.com/iamRavishKumarNDTV	420411
58	DuniyaDesh	fb.com/DuniyaDesh/	418000
59	ग्रेट नरेन्द्र मोदी	fb.com/MODIGHAMSN/	404000

‘भारत माता की जय’ evidently had the maximum likes – 6 million (60 lakh). In contrast, as per Facebook’s release, the combined likes count (approx) of all the Congress pages taken down was 2.06 lakh.

Accessing Google cache results of some of its posts revealed that the page frequently shared pro-BJP and pro-Modi posts.

The political inclination of several other pages is apparent from their names.

1. ‘बार बार मोदी सरकार – Modi Forever’ (3.4 million likes)
2. ‘एक नाम नरेन्द्र मोदी.’ (2.4 million likes)
3. ‘कहो दिल से, नरेन्द्र मोदी फिर से’ (2.7 million likes)
4. ‘I Support Modi’ (1.6 million likes)
5. ‘Sonia Gandhi Iron Lady’ (9 lakh likes)
6. ‘Narendra Modi Whatsapp Group’ (1.4 million likes)
7. ‘भारत की शान नरेंद्र मोदी.’ (1.1 million likes)
8. ‘Priyanka Gandhi – Next PM of India’ (5.39 lakh likes)
9. ‘Narendra Modi – True Indian’ (9.24 lakh likes)
10. ‘I Support Doval’ (1.7 million likes)

We also found several pages devoted to journalist Ravish Kumar that no longer exist of Facebook. The combined likes of three of these pages with over 4 lakh followers was more than 2 million. In the past, we have identified that pages created in the name of Kumar continually publish posts targeting the BJP or circulating misinformation.

Verified pages taken down by Facebook

Right-wing outlet My Nation and the official Facebook page of BJP MLA Raja Singh also came under Facebook’s knife. Both the pages were verified handles.

My Nation editor Abhijit Majumder took to Twitter to post that Facebook had not given the outlet a prior warning of the removal.

More than 24 hours that @facebook has taken down @MyNation verified page with 1 million+ followers. No alert prior to the action and no explanation thereafter. FB officials have only told us it’d be resolved soon.
The timing — peak election season — is interesting. And worrisome.

— Abhijit Majumder (@abhijitmajumder) April 2, 2019

BJP MLA Raja Singh alleged the same.

My official Facebook page has been unpublished / removed couple of days back @facebook may I know the reason.

— Chowkidar Raja Singh (@TigerRajaSingh) April 1, 2019

Facebook’s purge raises concerns

Facebook took down hundreds of pages from its platform that engaged in inauthentic behaviour. While such a move is welcome, several concerns arise with regard to the purge.

Why was the action taken so close to the elections? Why are offending pages and accounts not removed on a regular basis?

There are multiple testimonies of admins who claim that they were neither given a prior warning before the purge and nor any clear explanation as to why their pages were deleted/unpublished. When multiple organisations depend on Facebook, the lack of transparency regarding its actions is worrying.

Besides coordinated inauthentic behaviour, elections are also influenced by rampant misinformation on platforms owned by Facebook, which include WhatsApp and Instagram. Facebook has partnerships with fact-checking websites in India for many months now. Why weren’t pages/accounts who are serial offenders in the area of misinformation not taken down as well? The Facebook release clearly mentions that the takedown was not based on content.

Facebook needs to bring in more transparency toward an action that might significantly influence elections in India. Furthermore, it is concerning that a platform which claims sincerity in its effort to deter misinformation has not identified routine purveyors of disinformation and made them a part of the recent takedown.