The Congress party has dismissed claims by social networking site Facebook that 687 pages and accounts it has removed recently as part of a crackdown on fake accounts were linked to individuals associated with the Congress party’s IT Cell.
In a huddle to dispel what it called “misleading reports”, the Congress party has said that it has written to Facebook seeking details of the pages that had been pulled down and the basis for the claim that these were linked to the party’s IT Cell.
“This is to clarify no official pages run by INC have been taken down. Additionally, all pages run by our verified volunteers are also unaffected. In the mean time, we are awaiting a response from Facebook to provide us a list of all pages/accounts that they have taken down,” the party said in a statement put out on micro-blogging site Twitter.
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The statement by the party came shortly after the BJP launched a new broadside against the Congress based on the claim by Facebook. Union telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad called Facebook’s purported action a “very historical development” and claimed that the “owners of those accounts (allegedly linked to the Congress party) were not known. It was fake. It was used to spread falsehood against Narendra Modi government (sic)… When inquiry was done, it was found that those individuals were linked to Congress IT cell. Congress is desperate therefore resorting to these types of dubious means to claim support.”
Prasad predictably made no comment on another aspect of the claims made by Facebook – that the social networking website has also removed 15 pages, groups and accounts allegedly linked to individuals associated with an Indian IT firm, Silver Touch, a company associated with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s NaMo App. If Facebook is to be believed, these account owners used a combination of authentic and fake accounts to share their content like local news and political events, including topics like the Indian government, the upcoming elections, the BJP and alleged misconduct of political opponents including the Congress party.
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A senior Congress leader told Outlook that the claims made by Facebook’s head of cyber security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher had “caught the party unaware”. “There seems to be some misrepresentation of facts here. As far as we are concerned, our official pages as well as pages and accounts run by people associated with the Congress and its social media team, are still live on Facebook. Facebook never asked us about the veracity of the pages they have removed and whether they were, in any way, linked to people from the Congress party. An explanation has been sought from Facebook and we will be in a position to comment on the matter once we hear from them. If Facebook fails to give a credible explanation over its claims, we will decide what legal recourse the party can take,” the leader said.
Arguing that the details of Gleicher’s claim “prima facie border on conjecture, if not abject falsehood” Congress media cell chief Randeep Surjewala said, "I am saying with full responsibility and confidence that no page linked to the party or our social media team has been pulled down. I dare Facebook to prove its claim." The Congress leader also wondered why there was silence from Facebook on similar action taken against pages purportedly linked with the BJP’s IT Cell. "Anyone who is on a social media platform knows that the BJP’s IT Cell machinery has been employing various proxy strategies to attack the Congress. Why are we not hearing anything on that front. The Congress is prepared to share details of all pages it officially backs on Facebook or the monetary aspect of operating these pages,” he added.
