Facebook brings 'inauthentic behavior' crackdown to Indian, Pakistani pages
It removed 687 pages linked to India's opposition party and 103 connected to Pakistani military employees.
Facebook took action against pages based in India and Pakistan.
Facebook has removed hundreds of pages in India and Pakistan.
The people behind the pages tried to hide their identities as they engaged in "coordinated inauthentic behavior," Facebook's term for misinformation campaigns designed to deepen political divisions, the comany's cybersecurity policy boss Nathaniel Gleicher wrote in a blog post.
The social network pulled 687 pages and accounts connected to India's opposition Congress party days before the first phase of the country's general election on April 11. They mostly posted about political issues, criticized political opponents such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and supported Congress party leader Rahul Gandhi.
Gleicher also wrote that 103 pages, groups and accounts linked to the Pakistani military's public relations group were removed. They included military fan pages, and posted about Pakistani politics and the government of neighboring India -- with which the country has a tense relationship.
We've heard quite a lot from Gleicher lately -- last week he posted about Facebook cracking down on hundreds of misleading pages in the Philippines and thousands based in Russia, Iran, Macedonia and Kosovo.
First published at 3:03 a.m. PT.
Updated at 3:46 a.m. PT: Adds more detail.
