---
title: Facebook's April 2019 takedowns in India:a Congress IT cell, a BJP-linked IT firm and a Pakistani military network
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/
description: 'ten days before India''s 2019 general election began, Facebook removed two domestic networks it tied to people around both main parties: 687…'
section: Case studies
---

![Illustration: a redacted Cold War intelligence-dossier collage centred on a world map of influence operations, with the U.S. Capitol among the evidence.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/hero-home.jpg)

[Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/)

# Facebook's April 2019 takedowns in India:a Congress IT cell, a BJP-linked IT firm and a Pakistani military network

At a glance

Ten days before India's 2019 general election began, Facebook removed two domestic networks it tied to people around both main parties: 687 Congress-linked Pages and accounts with about 206,000 followers…

- **When:** April 1, 2019
- **Actor:** Individuals associated with an Indian National Congress…
- **Target:** Indian voters on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp before the April to May 2019 Lok Sabha election…
- **Confidence:** **documented** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures
- **Techniques:** [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/) [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/) [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/)

Full details

- **Actor:** Individuals associated with an Indian National Congress (INC) IT cell; individuals associated with Silver Touch Technologies, an Ahmedabad IT firm reported as the developer of the NaMo app; employees of Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), per Facebook; the BJP IT cell and the Congress social media department as the parties' own digital operations
- **Target:** Indian voters on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp before the April to May 2019 Lok Sabha election; Pakistani and Kashmiri audiences for the ISPR-linked network

On this page

- [What happened](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/#what-happened)
- [How it works](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/#how-it-works)
- [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/#then-and-now)
- [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/#positions-on-the-record)
- [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/#same-method-test)
- [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/#how-to-spot-it)
- [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/#images)
- [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-2019-facebook-takedowns/#sources)

On this page

**In one line:** ten days before India's 2019 general election began, Facebook removed two domestic networks it tied to people around both main parties: 687 Congress-linked Pages and accounts with about 206,000 followers, and 15 assets linked to the IT firm Silver Touch whose single Page had about 2.6 million followers. The Congress network was bigger by count of assets; the Silver Touch network was bigger by reach and by ad spend.

## What happened

- **2014 to 2019.** Facebook's later figures put the first ads of the Silver Touch-linked network in June 2014 and of the Congress-linked network in August 2014. Both networks were still buying ads in early 2019 (February and March respectively).
- **2016.** Journalist Swati Chaturvedi publishes *I Am a Troll: Inside the Secret World of the BJP's Digital Army* (Juggernaut). The book says the BJP used volunteers and paid staff to carry out central directives online. A former volunteer, Sadhavi Khosla, says on the record in it that she worked for the party's social media cell during coordinated attacks on critics.
- **2016.** A Facebook Page later called "The India Eye" is created. The DFRLab found it changed its name several times in its first two weeks. Its website, theindiaeye.com, was reported to be hosted on Silver Touch servers. Silver Touch managers denied any link to the site or the Page.
- **2017 to 2019.** Actor and former MP Divya Spandana (Ramya) heads the Congress party's social media and digital communication. Reporting credits her with rebuilding the party's online presence.
- **February 2018.** BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya posts a video of Spandana at a workshop for Congress workers in Karnataka. The BJP says she urged workers to open fake accounts and files a police complaint in Bengaluru. Spandana says the clip was edited out of context; other reports said she had asked for "multiple accounts".
- **2018 to 2019.** Both parties build WhatsApp structures. The Mozilla Foundation's election casebook describes more than 900,000 BJP volunteer "cell phone pramukhs" running neighbourhood WhatsApp groups, and Congress answering with its "Digital Sathi" app and its own volunteers. The Hindustan Times reported in July 2018 that the BJP in Uttar Pradesh planned 16,000 WhatsApp groups.
- **March 2019.** The Election Commission announces the poll schedule, and its model code of conduct for parties and candidates, which the Commission applies to their social media, takes effect. During the campaign the Commission flagged 154 items to Facebook, Twitter and Google as fake news. The Quint headlined its report on the list "All About Itself and Nothing Else", saying the flagged items concerned the Commission itself.
- **1 April 2019.** Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, posts *Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior and Spam From India and Pakistan*. As reported from the post:
- **INC IT cell network:** 687 assets (138 Pages and 549 accounts). About 206,000 accounts followed one or more of the Pages. About US$39,000 in ads, paid in rupees, from August 2014 to March 2019. Facebook said the people behind it "used fake accounts" and joined Groups to spread their content and raise engagement, posting on local news, the election, the INC and criticism of opponents including the BJP.
- **Silver Touch network:** 15 assets (one Page, 12 accounts, one Group, one Instagram account). About 2.6 million accounts followed the Page, about 15,000 joined the Group and about 30,000 followed the Instagram account. About US$70,000 in ads, paid in rupees, from June 2014 to February 2019. Facebook said "the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities" and that a small number of admins used "a combination of authentic and fake accounts" to post about the government, the election, the BJP and "alleged misconduct of political opponents including the INC". The Page was The India Eye.
- **Pakistan network:** 103 assets (24 Pages, 57 accounts, 7 Groups, 15 Instagram accounts) linked by Facebook to employees of ISPR, the Pakistani military's media wing. About 2.8 million accounts followed the Pages, about 4,700 joined the Groups, and about 1,050 followed the Instagram accounts. About US$1,100 in ads. The Pages were presented as military fan pages, Kashmir community pages and news pages, and many assets took part in coordinated reporting of content critical of Pakistan's government.
- **Spam:** a further 227 Pages and 94 accounts in India removed under spam and misrepresentation rules, which Facebook said were not one coordinated operation.
- **1 April 2019.** Congress tweets: "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."
- **1 to 2 April 2019.** Malviya says neither the BJP nor the NaMo app "had anything to do with Silver Touch". Facebook says it has not seen evidence on its platform tying Silver Touch to the NaMo app and will not speculate about off-platform links. The Quint and others report Silver Touch as the app's developer. ISPR's spokesman says the removed accounts were not run by the military.
- **Early April 2019.** Alt News, reported by Scroll, finds hundreds of further pro-BJP Pages removed in the same period without being named in Facebook's post. The Quint reports pro-BJP users objecting to spam removals. National Herald, whose publisher is owned by Young Indian, a company in which Sonia and Rahul Gandhi hold most of the shares (Onmanorama), asks whether Facebook understated the BJP-linked side.
- **11 April to 19 May 2019.** Seven-phase Lok Sabha polling. Results on 23 May return the BJP-led alliance to power.

**The difference, stated plainly.** By count of assets, the Congress-linked network was about 46 times larger (687 to 15). By Page followers, the Silver Touch-linked network was about 12 times larger (about 2.6 million to about 206,000). By ad spend, it was about 1.8 times larger (about US$70,000 to about US$39,000). The Pakistan network had the largest follower count of the three (about 2.8 million) and the smallest ad spend.

## How it works

- [Astroturfing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/astroturf/): by Facebook's findings, all three networks ran Pages and accounts that were not what they said they were. Facebook's finding for each was concealed operators and fake accounts. The India Eye presented itself as a news page. The ISPR-linked Pages presented themselves as fan, hobby and community pages. The Congress-linked Pages were not official party pages, which the party itself stressed. The tell in each case was shared operators behind apparently separate voices.
- [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/): Facebook said the Congress-linked operators used fake accounts to join Groups and raise engagement on their own Pages, and the Silver Touch-linked admins spread content across Pages with a mix of real and fake accounts. Both make one source look like many readers agreeing. The parties' WhatsApp pramukh structures are open volunteer networks, not fake personas, so they are not scored here; the forwarding they organise can look spontaneous when it is not, and is a separate question.
- [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/): scored only where material is documented. Chaturvedi's book, through Khosla's account, describes BJP social media volunteers directed to attack named journalists and critics. On the Congress side, on 29 April 2019 the party's social media head, Spandana, tweeted a side-by-side image of Hitler and Modi each pulling a child's ear, asking "what are your thoughts?". Alt News and BOOM found the Hitler half was a doctored image already debunked in 2018, and Spandana later acknowledged the error (Deccan Herald, Alt News). Facebook's post did not publish sample content from either network, so the removed Pages' own posts are not scored here.

## Then and now

![Russian Ads on Facebook (House Intelligence Committee exhibit)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/ira-facebook-ads-hpsci-2018.jpg)

*['Russian Ads on Facebook' (House Intelligence Committee exhibit)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ira-facebook-ads-hpsci-2018/), U.S. House Intelligence Committee, 2018. Public domain.*

The Internet Research Agency ran Facebook Pages that posed as American communities, on opposite sides of U.S. politics, from a foreign office. The India case differs in two ways. The operators were, by Facebook's finding, people associated with domestic party structures, not a foreign agency. And both main parties were touched in one announcement. What carries over is the form: Pages that look like independent fans or news, run by people who hide who they are, with paid ads to grow them. The Pakistan network in the same post is closer to the IRA model in one respect: Facebook linked it to employees of a state body, ISPR, which denied running it.

[India's Emergency: 'India is Indira' and the censored press](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/india-emergency-1975/) sets these takedowns beside the 1975-77 Emergency, whose name the BJP and Congress still use against each other.

![Official portrait of Prime Minister Narendra Modi](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/india-2019-modi-official-portrait.png)

*Narendra Modi, BJP leader and prime minister since 2014. Official portrait, Prime Minister's Office, 2022. Government Open Data License – India. Facebook's post did not name Modi or say the BJP directed the Silver Touch-linked network.*

![Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra at a campaign event, 16 April 2019](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/india-2019-rahul-priyanka-gandhi.jpg)

*Rahul Gandhi, Congress president during the 2019 campaign, with Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, 16 April 2019. Still from The Times of India on YouTube, CC BY 3.0. Facebook's post did not name either of them or say the party leadership directed the INC IT cell-linked network.*

## Positions on the record

- **Facebook's stated position:** it removed the assets for their behaviour, meaning fake accounts and concealed coordination, and it linked the networks to "individuals associated with" an INC IT cell, a firm and ISPR. It did not say either party directed the networks, and it declined to link Silver Touch to the NaMo app.
- **Congress's stated position:** no official INC page and no verified volunteer's page was removed; it asked Facebook for a full list.
- **BJP's stated position:** Malviya said neither the party nor the NaMo app had anything to do with Silver Touch. The BJP has used the Spandana video to argue that Congress encouraged fake accounts.
- **Silver Touch's stated position:** as reported, its managers denied involvement with The India Eye website and Page.
- **ISPR's stated position:** the blocked accounts were not controlled by the Pakistani military.
- **Critics:** Quartz reported that most removed pages were pro-Congress but the BJP side "took a much bigger hit" by reach. Alt News and Scroll said Facebook removed hundreds more pro-BJP pages without naming them. The Quint reported complaints from pro-BJP users about the spam removals. Spandana said the fake-accounts video was edited out of context.
- **This archive's reading:** documented are Facebook's counts, its attributions to "individuals associated with" each group, and the parties' own denials. **Not shown** in any public source found: that either party's leadership ordered the removed networks, or which removed spam pages belonged to which side. Chaturvedi's account of the BJP cell is journalism with a named witness; the BJP's answer to the book was not found in the sources available for this page. No comparable book-length account of the Congress operation was found for this page. That is a gap in the record found, not evidence either way.

## Same-method test

Two networks tied to rival parties are scored with the same words here: astroturf where Facebook found concealed operators and fake accounts, manufactured consensus where fake accounts were used to inflate engagement. The larger reach of the Silver Touch network and the larger asset count of the Congress network change the scale, not the label. A network tied to the ruling party of Pakistan or to any other Indian party would be scored the same way.

## How to spot it

- Check a Page's transparency panel: creation date, name changes and where its managers are. A "news" Page that renamed itself several times in its first fortnight is a signal.
- Compare what a platform counts. "687 Pages and accounts" and "2.6 million followers" measure different things, and headlines can pick the one that suits them.
- Separate open party volunteers, who post as themselves, from Pages that hide who runs them.
- Read platform wording exactly: "linked to individuals associated with" is not "run by the party".

## Images

| Image | Source | Licence |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *Russian Ads on Facebook* (2018) | FRAME gallery, from Wikimedia Commons | Public domain (U.S. government work) |
| Narendra Modi official portrait (2022) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Official_Photograph_of_Prime_Minister_Narendra_Modi_Portrait.png), Prime Minister's Office (pmindia.gov.in) | GODL-India |
| Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (16 April 2019) | [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rahul_Gandhi,_Priyanka_Gandhi_Vadra.jpg), The Times of India (YouTube) | CC BY 3.0 |

### Image gaps

- **Screenshots of the removed Pages (The India Eye, the Congress-linked Pages, the ISPR-linked Pages).** Facebook's post showed samples. They are platform screenshots of third-party content under copyright, so they are cited, not downloaded.
- **Facebook's newsroom post itself.** Linked below; copyrighted by Meta.
- **A 2019 photo of Modi on the campaign trail.** The Modi portrait used is from 2022. An openly licensed 2019 rally photo would match the Gandhi photo's date better. Fillable from Commons (GODL-India or CC) with more search time.
- **The NaMo app and Congress Digital Sathi app interfaces.** App screenshots are copyrighted software interfaces; cited, not downloaded.
- **Election Commission material on the model code and social media.** Not found in a verified open licence in this session. Fillable from eci.gov.in if its reuse terms allow.

## Sources

- [Facebook newsroom, Nathaniel Gleicher, 1 April 2019: Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior and Spam From India and Pakistan](https://about.fb.com/news/2019/04/cib-and-spam-from-india-pakistan/)
- [Reuters via CNBC, 1 April 2019: Facebook removes many accounts in India, Pakistan for "inauthentic" behavior](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/01/reuters-america-wrapup-1-facebook-removes-many-accounts-in-india-pakistan-for-inauthentic-behavior.html)
- [CNN Business, 1 April 2019: Pages linked to Congress party removed](https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/01/tech/facebook-india-congress-accounts-removed)
- [Business Today, 1 April 2019: Congress statement](https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/economy-politics/story/facebook-takes-down-several-congress-linked-pages-for-inauthentic-behaviour-185600-2019-04-01)
- [Scroll, 1 April 2019: Facebook removes accounts linked to Congress, BJP](https://scroll.in/latest/918572/facebook-says-it-has-removed-687-pages-accounts-linked-to-congress-it-cell)
- [Scroll explainer: Why did Facebook take down hundreds of BJP and Congress-linked pages?](https://scroll.in/article/918677/explainer-why-did-facebook-take-down-hundreds-of-bjp-and-congress-linked-pages)
- [Scroll: Facebook took down hundreds of BJP-related pages but didn't say so (Alt News findings)](https://scroll.in/article/919208/facebook-purge-hundreds-of-bjp-related-pages-were-taken-down-but-not-mentioned-in-firms-release)
- [Quartz: Most purged pages were pro-Congress, but the BJP took a much bigger hit](https://qz.com/india/1585087/facebooks-fake-pages-purge-hits-modis-bjp-harder-than-congress)
- [The Quint: Facebook removes 702 pages related to Congress and BJP-linked IT firm](https://www.thequint.com/elections/facebook-removes-702-pages-congress-bjp-linked-it-firm-silver-touch)
- [The Quint: The Silver Touch link between BJP and a page purged by Facebook](https://www.thequint.com/news/india/silver-touch-technologies-bjp-the-india-eye-namo-app-narendra-modi)
- [ANI via Business Standard: Facebook says no evidence of Silver Touch associated with NaMo app](https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/facebook-says-no-evidence-of-silver-touch-associated-with-namo-app-119040200118_1.html)
- [ANI: Facebook removes 15 pages linked to Silver Touch](https://www.aninews.in/news/world/us/facebook-removes-15-pages-linked-to-indian-it-firm-silver-touch20190401214846/)
- [DFRLab: #ElectionWatch: Inauthentic Activity in India](https://medium.com/dfrlab/electionwatch-inauthentic-activity-in-india-8940588e09b5)
- [Deccan Herald: Pro-BJP India Eye among pages removed by FB (DFRLab)](https://www.deccanherald.com/national/national-politics/pro-bjp-india-eye-among-pages-removed-by-fb-drflab-726362.html)
- [DFRLab: Pakistan Army's Covert Social Network](https://medium.com/dfrlab/pakistan-armys-covert-social-network-23ce90feb0d0)
- [RFE/RL: Facebook removes more than 100 military-linked accounts in Pakistan](https://www.rferl.org/a/facebook-removes-more-than-100-fake-accounts-from-pakistan/29854983.html)
- [The News (Pakistan): Blocked accounts not controlled by Pakistan military](https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/452987-ispr-has-no-links-to-accounts-blocked-by-facebook)
- [National Herald: Did Facebook downplay BJP-linked fake accounts and ad spend?](https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/facebook/did-facebook-downplay-bjp-linked-fake-accounts-and-the-amount-of-ad-spend-by-bjp)
- [The Quint: Facebook faces flak from right wingers over spam removals](https://www.thequint.com/news/india/facebook-right-wing-pages-accounts-removed-unpublished-faces-flak)
- [Onmanorama, 28 July 2022: Explained, the National Herald case (ownership of Associated Journals and Young Indian)](https://www.onmanorama.com/news/india/2022/07/28/explained-national-herald-case-sonia-gandhi-rahul-timeline.html)
- [Juggernaut: Swati Chaturvedi, I Am a Troll (2016)](https://www.juggernaut.in/products/i-am-a-troll-inside-the-secret-world-of-the-bjp-s-digital-army)
- [Scroll: review of I Am a Troll](https://scroll.in/article/825408/this-book-links-hate-and-violence-filled-right-wing-tweets-to-political-strategy-and-deep-planning)
- [The Quint: Ramya says her "fake accounts" video was edited out of context](https://www.thequint.com/news/india/webqoof-edited-out-of-context-ramya-on-fake-social-media-accounts-video)
- [OpIndia, February 2018: BJP files complaint against Congress social media head](https://www.opindia.com/2018/02/bjp-files-complaint-against-congress-social-media-head-for-encouraging-party-workers-to-create-fake-accounts/)
- [Deccan Herald: Divya Spandana tweets photoshopped Hitler-Modi photo](https://www.deccanherald.com/india/divya-spandana-tweets-photoshopped-hitler-modi-photo-731281.html)
- [Mozilla Foundation: Party Politics and WhatsApp Pramukhs (India case study)](https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/research/library/global-elections-casebook/india-case-study/)
- [Hindustan Times via PressReader, 5 July 2018: UP BJP to create 16k WhatsApp groups](https://www.pressreader.com/india/hindustan-times-lucknow/20180705/281569471480750)
- [The Quint: Election Commission reported 154 fake news items during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections](https://www.thequint.com/amp/story/news/webqoof/election-commission-of-india-reported-154-fake-news-facebook-twitter-google)
- [Alt News: Congress IT cell head tweets photoshopped image drawing a parallel between PM Modi and Hitler](https://www.altnews.in/congress-it-cell-head-tweets-photoshopped-image-drawing-a-parallel-between-pm-modi-and-hitler/)
- [BOOM: Divya Spandana tweets photoshopped picture while targeting Modi](https://www.boomlive.in/divya-spandana-tweets-photoshopped-picture-while-targeting-modi/)