New Delhi: A new report claims that Facebook allowed a network of fake accounts to ‘artificially inflate’ the popularity of a BJP MP for months after it was informed of the matter by an employee. Using internal corporate documents and testimony from a former employee-turned-whistleblower, a media report notes that the company was preparing to remove the fake accounts when it found some evidence that the MP was ‘probably directly involved’.
A media report notes, ‘The company was preparing to remove the fake accounts but paused when it found evidence that the politician was likely directly involved in the network,’ internal documents seen by the Guardian show. On the other hand, the report points out, faster action was taken against other similar networks, including one that helped prop up members of the Congress party. In its response, Facebook has disputed the characterization of the action taken on the fake account networks.
Zhang claimed the networks contained inauthentic accounts that promoted political messages to support specific politicians in violation of Facebook guidelines. The group was not found to be spreading hate speech or misinformation, she said. Zhang did not name the BJP MP. She said there was no evidence that politicians supported the three other networks. Zhang, who worked with Facebook from January 2018 to September 2020, told ThePrint she found the networks around December 2019. 
Facebook responded to The Guardian in an April 2021 report by saying that action was taken and suggested it may have been a temporary measure. In May 2020, Facebook disabled part of its cluster and continued to monitor accounts across the rest of the network. The report added that a ‘specialist team’ had reviewed the accounts and that only a small minority had met the threshold for removal, but were nevertheless inactive. Despite the accounts being removed, Zhang told ThePrint that they had ‘returned’ within the next four months.
According to reports, Zhang was fired by Facebook for not doing enough work to weed out fake engagements (likes, shares). Since then, she has emerged as a whistleblower, exposing how the platform is widely used for political manipulation. In response to a request for comment, Facebook told ThePrint that it ‘fundamentally’ disagrees with Ms. Zhang’s characterization of our priorities and efforts to root out abuse on our platform.
According to a Facebook spokesperson, ‘We aggressively pursue abuse around the world and have specialized teams dedicated to this work. We have taken down more than 150 coordinated networks of inauthentic behavior as a result. About half of them operated in countries around the world, including India. Our priority is combating coordinated inauthentic behavior,’ the spokesperson said. ‘We are also addressing spam and fake engagement. Before we take action or make public claims about any issue, we investigate it’.
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The US-based Wall Street Journal reported last year that Facebook failed to act against hate speech propagated by a BJP leader on the platform, allegedly to protect its business prospects in its largest market. According to the report, some controversial posts about the party leader and two other colleagues had only been removed after the Wall Street journal reporters raised questions’ about them. Moreover, the company denied the allegations then as well.
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