New Delhi: Facebook has removed 37 accounts, 32 pages, 11 groups and 42 Instagram accounts linked to India for violating its policy “against foreign or government interference”.
Facebook said people behind the activity “typically posted in English” about local news and events including topics such as “Saudi Arabia’s role in the Yemen conflict, the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s human rights record” etc.
In a post published Monday, the social media giant said the removed content violated its policy related to foreign or government interference using coordinated inauthentic behaviour on behalf of a foreign or government entity. The content targetted users in the Gulf, the US, Canada and the UK.
Facebook’s investigations linked the content to Delhi-based aRep Global, a digital marketing firm, and also found that the entities running the content, including aRep Global, tried to “conceal their identities and coordination”.
The clean-up is part of Facebook’s efforts to remove networks of Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour (CIB) because they “seek to manipulate public debate across our apps”, and are suspected of being backed by a government or foreign entity to manipulate the public narrative.
Facebook estimates that around 29,000 accounts followed one or more of these pages, about 1,100 accounts joined at least one of the groups, and around 74,000 people followed one or more of the Instagram accounts.
About $450 dollars had been spent on Facebook and Instagram ads for the content, paid for in various currencies, including US dollars, Indian rupee and Bangladeshi taka.
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The problem
Facebook shared samples of the removed content, which show a focus on Saudi’s human rights track record and involvement in the Yemen war.
Some Facebook pages posed as news organisations and some accounts as journalists and activists, while some accounts were set up to look like they were operated by local users from the country being targeted.
Here are samples of some the content that was taken down:
An Instagram post by ‘saudidissident’ questioned if the English Premier League would “make a stand on Saudi Arabia’s human rights record…”
Another Instagram post from ‘war_journalist’ read: “Human rights in Yemen [,] who is gonna defend Yemeni children?”, with a cartoon of a man in traditional Arabic clothing holding a missile as two children stand close by.
A Facebook page ‘Raven Tribune’ read: “Despite multiple human rights violations and involvement in Yemen Crisis, Saudi Arabia continues to enjoy privileges…” It was accompanied by an article titled ‘What’s the real motive behind Saudi paying for US Troops deployment?’
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Bad rep for aRep
Launched in 2013, aRep Global calls itself an online reputation management (ORM) firm. Such firms help clients create and post specific content, typically aimed at building a narrative.
“The organisation works on the three pillars of repairing, branding and monitoring the online image of a business enterprise,” the company said in a press release in February 2016.
According to the release, aRep has a marketing arm in London, and is an empanelled corporation of the UK Trade and Investment (UKTI), a government body that promotes trade and helps businesses reach more markets.
The listed contact number for the company is switched off while the link for the website arepglobal.com goes to an error page.
Inauthentic networks
Apart from the India-linked accounts, Facebook removed four other networks based in Egypt, Russia, Iran, Myanmar and Vietnam for trying to manipulate public debates in a coordinated manner.
As a result, in February alone, the total number of accounts removed totalled 467. As many as 1,245 Instagram accounts were taken down, while the total number of Facebook Pages removed was 248, and that of groups shut was 49.
The total ad spending on the disabled networks amounted to around $1.2 million.
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