Tag: fake accounts

Elon Musk Says $44 Billion Twitter Deal ‘On Hold’

The billionaire, in a tweet, said that the deal has been shelved pending details about the proportion of spam accounts on the platform.

Elon Musk said Friday that his plans to buy Twitter were “on hold.”

The reason, he tweeted, was a probe into a “calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”

Twitter had earlier this month estimated that false or spam accounts represented fewer than 5% of its 229 million monetizable daily
active users.

Musk has previously said one of his priorities once the deal has gone through would be to make Twitter “better than ever” by “defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans.”

His announcement saw shares in the social media giant drop by 20% in early electronic trading before Wall Street opened.

Sikh Farmers, Diaspora Sad But Not Surprised to Learn of Fake Social Media Accounts Against Protests

Active members of the farmers’ protest said they knew social media was being used to target them – and that’s why they came up with their own social media strategy.

Ranchi: Even after the Narendra Modi-led government announced that the three controversial agri-marketing Bills will be withdrawn in the next session of the parliament, the farmers’ protests continue.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha, the governing body of the movement, says that the withdrawal of the three laws is only an acceptance of half of their charter of demands. Therefore, protests shall continue, they said in an open letter to the prime minister earlier this week.  

Furthermore, supporters of the movement say that a year-long vilification of the movement by ministers in the government, and the ‘murders’ of over 700 farmers, are hard to forgive and forget.

In this backdrop, a report has been released by a UK-based organisation – Centre For Information Resilience (CIR) – which has  revealed that fake social media accounts were being run on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to run a divisive propaganda against Sikhs and discredit the struggle of a majority of farmers in the ongoing stir.

“We will continue to monitor accounts associated with the patterns”

The CIR report is authored by Benjamin Strick, who is a digital investigator. He specialises in open source intelligence, geospatial intelligence and data analysis, and has a background in the military and law.

His research notes that a network of social media accounts are being run by fake personas to amplify divisive politics on Twitter.

The report says that social media posts made by accounts operated by fake personas, having profile pictures of celebrities and seemingly Sikh names, were aiming to spread a notion that one is a “real Sikh” only if they supported the Indian government, and a “fake Sikh” if they supported the Sikh independence movement for Khalistan.

These posts were further used as a tool to discredit the farmers ‘movement, where a large number of farmers are Sikhs, the report notes.

The report also says that core accounts which positioned themselves as “real Sikhs” saw engagement from many accounts which identify as Indian nationalists. “This suggests the influence operation may be targeting audiences within both Sikh and Hindu communities,” it says.

Responding to an email questionnaire sent by The Wire, Strick said that he started to dig into some of these accounts while he  was looking at various “influence operations” targeting the subject of the farmers’ debate.

“I originally discovered this network earlier this year, and then over the course of the following months, identified further patterns in the accounts’ behaviour,” he wrote.

Also read: Ground Report: Farmers at Ghazipur Border Mark Year of Protest, Vow to Keep the Fight On

When asked if the CIR knew if these accounts were being run as a part of a government run IT-cell or was run by Indian citizens, Benjamin wrote that while the accounts are supportive of the Indian government, there is no evidence linking them to the Bharatiya Janata Party-run IT cell.

“At this moment there is no evidence linking this network directly with the Indian government. We will continue to monitor accounts associated with the patterns detected in this network, as well as other influence operations targeting issues in India and the wider diaspora community,” he wrote.

Former BJP IT cell employee says “all of this is true”

In the month of December last year, a young Sikh man, Sukhpreet Singh, had publicly stated how the BJP IT Cell, for which he was working at the time, was running false propaganda against the farmers’ movement and the Sikhs. Following his public statement, he quit the IT cell.

Speaking to The Wire, Singh said, “All of this (the findings of the report) is true.”

When asked if the modus operandi at the BJP IT cell was similar to the one described in the CIR report, Singh said that a majority of the accounts at the BJP IT cell, at the time, were also operated by non-Sikh people pretending to be Sikh. Only a few accounts were operated by Sikhs, he said.

“I can say that the maximum number of accounts with Sikh names, run by the BJP IT at the time, are people who aren’t actually Sikh,” he said.

Using government agencies?

While the accounts mentioned in the CIR report cannot be linked to the Indian government at the moment, Singh says that he has a “hunch” that these accounts, identified by the CIR report, are probably being run by Indian government agencies.

“These may not directly be BJP IT cell accounts but I have a hunch that they’re being run by Indian government agencies,” he said.

According to the CIR report, the accounts with fake personas had a core network, which saw multiple interactions with real, honest accounts. As a result, these fake accounts saw engagement from many verified accounts.

The report said a few verified accounts may also be a part of the network, which were used to amplify the tweets of the core network of fake accounts.

The report provides examples showing how tweets of accounts with fake personas engaged with verified accounts. Among the verified accounts, two accounts are owned by Indian Army officers, including a serving General Officer, Lt. Gen. KJS Dhillon.

The report also provides a circular chart to understand how core fake accounts interacted with the rest of the network.

“Visualisations based on the number of interactions are helpful in identifying not only the accounts that have more traction – in this case the core network of 80 fake accounts – but also the supporters of those core accounts who spread and amplify their content,” the report notes.

‘This is the reason why we had to create a ‘farmers IT Cell’’

Supporters of the movement, who have read this report, say that none of this has surprised them. In fact, they told The Wire that this has only refreshed their memories, reminding them of a systemic network which was built to delegitimise a peaceful and democratic protest.

Bhavjit Singh, a farmer’s son and the owner of the ‘Tractor2Twitter’ account, had carried out door-to-door campaigns in Punjab in the early days of the movement, asking Punjabis to join social media as part of their support for the movement, and to specifically counter the divisive narrative on the internet.

Also read: Farm Laws Protests: How Punjabi Songs of Resistance Kept the Movement’s Flag Flying

Speaking to The Wire, he said that their team had noticed such accounts with fake personas back in February last year.

“This report has a small sample size,” Bhavjit said over the phone. “We have been observing this (fake personas) since February and had started updating our followers (of such manipulation) way back in September.”

“We used to call these people ‘sleeper cells’,” Bhavjit added. “The Sikh vs comrade controversy was manufactured by these people. They wanted to hit two birds with one stone. One – divide Punjab on the basis of Sikh vs Comrade and two – dilute strength of morcha.” 

Harinder Singh, who works with official social media accounts of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, told The Wire that the reason the farmers’ movement needed official social media handles was because they’d noticed such manipulation early on.

“We used to see that as soon as we posted something, immediately some accounts would start hurling abuses in the comments in a systematic fashion. We suspect these accounts operated in a similar fashion to how it has been described in this report”,  he said. “The reason we too created a ‘farmers IT cell’ was because we knew that a separate fight on the internet too had to be fought, and this report proves it,” he added.

Diaspora attacked

The CIR report also notes that the accounts who positioned themselves as “real Sikh”ran derogatory and accusatory posts against the Sikh diaspora.

“There have been numerous topics, such as suggesting foreign harbouring of Khalistan in Canada and the UK as well as targeting activists by mixing in several unique hashtags,” the report notes.

In one post, the two Sikh members of the UK parliament – Preet Kaur Gill and Tamnanjeet Singh Dhesi – and one Jagmeet Singh who is member of the house of commons of Canada, were labelled Khalistani.

Daljeet Singh, a young supporter  of the farmers’ movement and a lawyer by profession, was born and raised in the UK. His mother belongs to Nakodar in Punjab and moved to London when she was 12.

Ever since the movement gained momentum back in India, Daljeet has been carrying out ‘sleepouts’ across many cities of England. “We would carry our sleeping bags, food and cups of tea and sleep out on the streets to protest the farming policies of the Indian government and their handling of the protest,” he told The Wire over the phone.

“The reason we chose this form of protest was because we wanted to experience what farmers in India were going through first hand. To sit in chilling cold weather, on the streets, looks easy but is not.”

Responding to the CIR report, Daljeet said that it was extremely heartbreaking that the mainstream media and the Indian government, on many occasions, has painted the Sikh diaspora in one colour and delegitimised their solidarity towards the people of India.

“It’s not a surprise to see these fake accounts target the diaspora. The Indian government and media have repeatedly and wrongly labelled members of the diaspora as anti-national when they are simply supporting the people of India in the farmers protest,” he said.

Twitter and Meta’s response to the BBC

Speaking with the BBC, the media organisation which exclusively released the CIR report, a Twitter spokesperson responded to the findings of the report and said: “At this time, there’s no evidence of widespread co-ordination, the use of multiple accounts by single people, or other platform manipulation tactics.”

After the publication of the BBC report, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have removed the accounts on the two platforms for violating its “inauthentic behaviour” policies.

A Meta spokesperson told the BBC that the said accounts “misled people about the origin and popularity of their content and used fake accounts to spam people and evade our enforcement”.

Facebook Allegedly Delayed Acting Against Fake Account Network That Boosted BJP MP: Report

A report published in The Guardian claims that the company was preparing to remove the fake accounts but paused when it found evidence that the MP “was probably directly involved in the network”.

New Delhi: Facebook allegedly allowed a network of fake accounts to “artificially inflate” the popularity of a BJP MP for months after it was alerted to the matter by an employee, a new report published in The Guardian has claimed.

The media report, which cites internal corporate documents and testimony from a former employee-turned-whistleblower, notes that the company was preparing to remove the fake accounts but “paused” when it found some evidence that the MP was “probably directly involved” in the network.

The Guardian has not named the BJP MP in question.

“The company was preparing to remove the fake accounts but paused when it found evidence that the politician was probably directly involved in the network, internal documents seen by the Guardian show,” the media report notes.

In contrast, the report points out, quicker action was taken on other similar networks, including one that helped prop up members of the Congress party.

In its response, Facebook has disputed the characterisation of the action taken on the fake account networks.

Sequence of events

According to The Guardian, the fake account network was first discovered Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist for Facebook who has over the last few months publicly tried to expose the company’s failure to address how its platform is being used to manipulate public discourse.

“In December 2019, Zhang detected four sophisticated networks of suspicious accounts that were producing fake engagement – ie likes, shares, comments and reactions – on the pages of major Indian politicians. Two of the networks were dedicated to supporting members of the BJP, including the MP; the other two supported members of the Indian National Congress, the leading opposition party,” the media report points out.

Also read: RSF Files Lawsuit Against Facebook in France for Allowing Hate Speech, Misinformation

After Zhang’s initial alert, an investigator from Facebook’s threat intelligence team determined that the networks were made up of “manually controlled inauthentic accounts that were being used to create fake engagement”.  Though they didn’t qualify as “coordinated inauthentic behavior” – a technical term that Facebook uses when describing serious deceptive tactics on its platform – they still allegedly violated the platform’s rules.

The Guardian report claims that the investigator recommended that the accounts be sent through an identity “checkpoint” – a “process by which suspicious accounts are locked unless and until the account owner can provide proof of their identity” .

On December 19, the report alleges, a Facebook staffer checkpointed more than 500 accounts connected to three of the networks. A day later, the same staffer was preparing to checkpoint the approximately 50 accounts involved in the fourth network when he paused.

“Just want to confirm we’re comfortable acting on those actors,” the staffer allegedly wrote in Facebook’s task management system. One of the accounts had been tagged by Facebook’s “Xcheck” system as a “Government Partner” and “High Priority – Indian”, he noted. 

“It was the MP’s own account, Zhang realized, and its inclusion in the network constituted strong evidence that either the MP or someone with access to his Facebook account was involved in coordinating the 50 fake accounts,” the report noted. 

According to internal company documents reviewed by The Guardian, Zhang “repeatedly sought approval to move ahead with the checkpoints”. 

“For completeness and [to] avoid accusations of biased enforcement, could we also come to an assessment on the cluster acting on [the MP]?” she wrote on February 3, and allegedly did not receive a response. 

Months later, in August, she noted the still unresolved situation, writing: “Given the close ties to a sitting member of the Lok Sabha, we sought policy approval for a takedown, which we did not receive; and the situation was not deemed to be a focus for prioritization.”

Again, the report claims, there was no response.

On her final day at Facebook in September 2020, she updated the task one last time to flag that there was a “still-existing cluster of accounts associated with” the MP.

“I asked about it repeatedly, and I don’t think I ever got a response,” Zhang told The Guardian. “It seemed quite concerning to myself because the fact that I had caught a politician or someone associated with him red-handed was more of a reason to act, not less.”

Congress network

The media report also notes that relatively quick action was taken against fake account networks that helped prop up members of the Congress Party, with repeated action being taken against one of them when they tried to re-organise in the run-up to the 2020 Delhi assembly elections.

Interview: ‘If You Want to Curb Fake News, Control BJP’s IT Cell’: Supriya Shrinate on IT Rules

“While Zhang was trying and failing to convince Facebook to take action on the MP’s network, Facebook’s staff took repeated action against one of the two Indian National Congress networks that it had tried to remove in December. Though the checkpoints had knocked out most of the fake accounts, Facebook saw immediate efforts to reconstitute with new accounts and, in the weeks ahead of the 2020 state elections in Delhi, the network that had previously boosted a Congress politician in Punjab began supporting AAP, the anti-corruption party in Delhi,” the report noted.

Facebook denial 

When contacted by The Guardian, Facebook denied that action on the network had been blocked and said the “vast majority” of accounts had been checkpointed and permanently removed in December 2019 and early 2020.

In its report, The Guardian said that in response to Facebook’s initial denial, the publication pointed to “documents showing that the checkpoints had not been carried out”. After this rebuttal, Facebook appears to have changed tack, and told the UK publication that “a portion” of the cluster had been disabled in May 2020, and that it was continuing to monitor the rest of the network’s accounts. 

The company then later said that a “specialist team” had reviewed the accounts and that a small minority of them had not met the threshold for removal but were nevertheless now inactive.

In response to a query sent by The Wire, a Facebook spokesperson said the company disagrees with Zhang’s characterisation of the company’s efforts to root out abuse.

“We fundamentally disagree with Ms. Zhang’s characterization of our priorities and efforts to root out abuse on our platform. We aggressively go after abuse around the world and have specialized teams focused on this work. Over the years, our teams investigated and publicly shared our findings about three CIB takedowns in India. We’ve also continuously detected and taken action against spam and fake engagement in the region, in line with our policies,” a company spokesperson said. 

Twitter’s Failure to Enforce Policy Helps Many Suspended Pro-BJP Accounts Make a Comeback

Several accounts like TrueIndology – which is infamous for routinely sharing fictitious historical claims – have reappeared on Twitter despite its policy to prohibit such users from creating new accounts.

A hashtag celebrating the revival of a suspended account took Twitter by storm on November 27. ‘#TrueIndologyIsBack’ was used to welcome a handle by the same name, permanently suspended by Twitter twice in the past. Among those delighted by his unapproved return were members and supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

TrueIndology is infamous for routinely sharing fictitious historical claims advocating Hindu supremacy over other faiths, especially Islam. He retained the pseudonym ‘TrueIndology’ upon his comeback for the third time but disclosed a photograph and surname. His previous account which was suspended by Twitter was @TIinExile. The propaganda account now goes by @BharadwajSpeaks.

Twitter permanently suspends accounts that violate its rules in order to ensure that the platform provides a safe space for healthy discourse. Furthermore, it prohibits these users from reappearing on the platform using alternate accounts. According to its policy, accounts that promote violence, harassment, abuse, among a plethora of other red flags, are permanently removed.

“Permanently suspending an account will remove it from the global view, and ‘the violator will not be allowed to create new accounts’,” says Twitter.

While it may be difficult to keep a track of all the accounts making a comeback on Twitter with changed usernames, the argument does not hold in the case of TrueIndology. For starters, #TrueIndologyIsBack was the topmost trending hashtag when the new account was made. Bharadwaj also kept the username similar to the original in the initial days.

In a matter of a few weeks, TrueIndology 3.0 has managed to gain over 1.7 lakh followers (as of this writing).

This account is one among the many suspended handles to have returned on the platform. Alt News sent Twitter multiple emails, messages and tweets informing the tech company of these handles (also listed below in the report). But none of our queries was answered. Twitter has failed to enforce its policy for suspended accounts and overlooked several handles that continue to exist and promote sectarian propaganda.

The reappearance of suspended propaganda handles on Twitter

1. Twitter had suspended @pokershash, an account that used to enjoy the support of top BJP brass.

Below is a glimpse of the content he used to frequently share.

That picture of condoms dumped on a roadside was found on several Vietnamese websites from three years ago. It has nothing to do with protests against the citizenship law at Shaheen Bagh.

Twitter suspended @pokershash for targetted harassment of AAP spokesperson Preeti Menon.

But he is now back with the handle ‘@BefittingFacts’ already gaining 46,000 followers. On August 29, he had quote-tweeted a user talking about the weight loss journey of @pokershash and explained how he achieved his target.

He still operates his Instagram account under the pseudonym @pokershash where he regularly shares @BefittingFacts tweets.

2. Twitter had also permanently suspended two accounts (@vibhor_anand and @ivibhoranand) of Delhi-based man Vibhor Anand who claims to be an advocate. He now operates with the username @OfficeofVA, of which he also made an announcement.

Last month, a sessions court in Mumbai had granted bail to Anand for “for allegedly posting defamatory tweets against state ministers of Maharashtra and spreading fake theories about the Sushant Singh Rajput case”, reported Bar and Bench. His lawyer argued that Anand was “made to believe” that Rajput and his former manager Disha Salian were murdered by watching television news, particularly Republic Bharat.

In 2018, Anand had posted a series of tweets appealing to those who felt “cheated” by activist Shehla Rashid who crowdfunded money for the Kathua rape victim. He claimed to take legal action against her for embezzlement. There isn’t an update on what exactly happened with the ‘legal action’ but the assertion that Rashid pocketed the funds is false. Alt News’s detailed report on the disinformation can be read here.

3. To anyone well-versed with the misinformation ecosystem on Twitter, @squintneon needs no introduction. The account was known for indulging in targetted harassment using the vilest language. Below is a tweet that it had posted before the suspension of its first account.

Alt News had also documented communally motivated rumours peddled by the handle. It quote-tweeted a video in 2018 claiming that a Naga Sadhu was beaten by a Muslim mob. Alt News Fact Check found that the man was a beggar who attempted to molest a woman in a state of inebriation. She hailed from a Hindu family and her brother had beat up the beggar.

The account @squintneon returned after its suspension in 2019 as @SquintNayan which too was suspended.

But the account is now back as @TheSquind. Among its followers are BJP leaders Kapil Mishra and Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga. The account routinely shares tweets by @TheSquind on its Instagram handle Squint Neon.

After Jamia scholar Safoora Zargar was booked by the Delhi police under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act or UAPA for participating in Delhi riots, @TheSquind used a photograph of another student to take a dig at Zargar’s pregnancy at the time of her arrest. Alt News Fact Check report on his tweet can be read here.

4. Another user close to the BJP who now has a third account on Twitter is Anuj Bajpai.

Bajpai used to claim that he works with the Uttar Pradesh chief minister’s office which was later found to be untrue. However, he certainly enjoys the support of several BJP leaders. BJP Haryana social media head Arun Yadav welcomed Bajpai to Twitter after he made his second account, @Brand_Anuj.

This account too was suspended in a few months but Bajpai returned with a third account @itsAnujBajpai and made a declaration of the same on Facebook. He has now changed the username to @itsBrandAnuj.

5. A Twitter user that goes by the username @GKapoor20 had recently made a tasteless comment on anti-CAA activist and Jamia scholar Safoora Zargar.

Zargar was three months pregnant when she was arrested in April. Despite being a woman, Kapoor’s sensibilities did not prevent her from undermining another woman’s politics using crass language.

The handle @GKapoor20 is run by a vocal supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gita Kapoor. She was also followed by the Prime Minister. This is her second account, created after Twitter permanently suspended her earlier handle @GitaSKapoor. Alt News has published several reports identifying Kapoor as a purveyor of misinformation.

Also read: What to Believe — and Not Believe — About Fake News in India

Twitter does not give an option to report new accounts of suspended users

The micro-blogging website has a ‘report tweet’ option where users can intimate the platform of probable violations. This option, however, does not extend to new accounts of suspended users.

The rationale behind not allowing individuals to recreate accounts after having been suspended for violating Twitter policies of harassment, abuse is to enforce accountability and discourage repeat offenders. It is shocking that the platform is failing to enforce its policy for such hugely popular accounts. It is virtually impossible to miss their reappearance. Most of these handles are welcomed by prominent BJP members and leaders upon the creation of a fresh account which in turn helps them regain followers quickly. Despite continuing to engage in behaviour in violation of Twitter policies, they are allowed to thrive without the platform taking any action.

This article was originally published on Alt News.

Maha Police Register Multiple FIRs Against People Accused of ‘Targeting’ Thackerays

According to reports, the FIRs have named people who were involved in “coordinated attacks” against the Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and son Aaditya after the death of Sushant Singh Rajput.

New Delhi: The Maharashtra police have registered at least 10 FIRs against people who are accused of posting ‘defamatory content’ against the state’s chief minister Uddhav Thackeray and his son Aaditya on social media.

According to the Indian Express, the police claim that the FIRs were filed against people who launched “coordinated attacks” against the Maharashtra CM and his son after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

The newspaper also reported that four persons have been arrested, while some individuals have been named in multiple FIRs.

In the aftermath of Rajput’s death, the Mumbai police and the Maharashtra government came under attack from a section of the media and several social media accounts for allegedly hampering the investigation. In early October, the Mumbai police claimed that over 80,000 fake accounts had been created on social media platforms to ‘discredit’ the police and the state government.

According to the Indian Express, most of the individuals who have been named or arrested for allegedly defaming the Thackerays are “either associated with or are seen to be sympathetic towards the BJP”.

The FIRs were registered after Dharam Mishra, a member of the Shiv Sena’s legal cell, registered complaints. “Most of the accused in the FIRs are supporters of BJP, and my question to the BJP is, how will they justify the tweets posted by these persons who are not only making derogatory and abusive comments against the persons sitting on constitutional posts, but are also outraging the modesty of women by making and posting obscene and indecent contents on social media, and also posting abusive and bad remarks against Hon’ble Supreme Court judges,” Mishra told the Indian Express.

Meanwhile, BJP MLA Ashish Shelar denied the allegations that the BJP had orchestrated the social media campaign against the Maharashtra government. “If the Maharashtra government does not like being attacked, what about those attacking the central government? The law should be equal for everyone. What locus standi do people have to write against the PM? Criticism is a part of democracy which should be welcome without anyone making below-the-belt remarks,” Shelar said.

In a press release issued on Tuesday, the Mumbai Police said that an investigation by cyber and forensic experts into hashtags such as #Babypenguin, #JusticeforSSR, and #ParamBirSinghResign had found “that the accounts were recently created (June 2020-October 2020)”.

The report found that 80% of the 1.5 lakh accounts which ‘vilified’ the police and Maha Vikas Aghadi government were “fake” and were operating China, Panama, Hong Kong, and Nepal. The accounts were created using proxy servers, the report said.

Sushant Singh Rajput Case: Over 80,000 Fake Accounts Created to ‘Discredit’ Mumbai Police

The city police’s cyber unit has compiled a report which says posts with hashtags related to the actor’s death were uploaded from foreign countries and in foreign languages.

New Delhi: The Mumbai police have apparently identified over 80,000 fake accounts that were created on various social media platforms after the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput with the intent to ‘discredit’ the city police and the Maharashtra government.

According to the Hindustan Times, the Mumbai police’s cyber unit has compiled a report in which it says social media posts with hashtags like #justiceforsushant and #SSR were uploaded from countries like Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovenia, Indonesia, Turkey, Thailand, Romania and France.

Automated bots are regularly used to inflate traffic surrounding hashtags, a practice aimed at gaming Twitter’s trending topics. ‘Foreign’ accounts are regularly used in this practice, even though the social media giant insists it has preventive measures in place to prevent coordinated campaigns.

“We identified the posts in foreign languages because of the hashtags used like #justiceforsushant #sushantsinghrajput and #SSR. We’re in the process of verifying more accounts,” said a senior IPS officer told the newspaper.

The report also says that the Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh has asked the cyber cell to investigate the alleged fake accounts and register cases under the Information Technology Act.

“The campaign was run against Mumbai police just to demoralise us at a time when 84 policemen had died due to the pandemic and over 6,000 men were infected with the virus. This was a motivated campaign with vested interest just to malign the image of Mumbai police and derail our line of investigation,” he told HT.

He said multiple fake accounts were created on social media to target the Mumbai police with “abusive tones”.

The Mumbai police had begun investigating the case and ruled the actor’s death a suicide. The Bihar police registered a case against the actor’s partner Rhea Chakraborty, after Rajput’s family members accused her of murder and abetment of suicide. Many, including actor Kangana Ranaut, cast doubts on the Mumbai police’s ability to properly investigate the case.

It was in this context that a social media campaign began, demanding justice for Rajput. The Mumbai police cyber cell’s report says that automated bots or foreign accounts were used to populate the hashtags.

The case was eventually taken over by the CBI, which is investigating the case.

Study finds BJP hyped up conspiracy theories

A recent study conducted by the University of Michigan found that members of the BJP played a role in amping up conspiracy theories related to the actor’s death. It looked at social media trends, handles, patterns and the tweets of politicians, influencers, journalists and media houses between June 14 (the day Rajput died) and September 12, and found that members of the BJP and pro-BJP handles cranked up the rumour mill, and were behind the troll attacks on the Mumbai police, the Maharashtra government and many Bollywood actors.

Also Read: Sushant Singh Rajput: Study Reveals BJP’s Hand in Hyping Conspiracy Theories

“The data show an important role played by politicians, especially the BJP, in proposing a ‘murder’ alternative to the ‘suicide’ narrative. There was a real opportunity to address mental health and depression early in news cycle, but the stories quickly devolved to allusive concoctions,” it says.

It says the Mumbai police was trolled heavily “by various stakeholders, but particularly BJP politicians”. The Maharashtra government was also targeted, the study says. “The attack on the police was used as a bridge into attacking the state cabinet, beginning with #AnilDeshmukhSavingSSRKillers (the home minister), #MahaGovtExposed, and eventually Aditya Thackeray, who is already one of the most trolled politicians in India,” the study says.

The BJP has also been accused of trying to gain political mileage out of the actor’s death. Rajput was from Bihar, where an election is due later this month.

On Saturday, a six-member team of AIIMS’s forensic doctors ruled out the possibility that Rajput was murdered, saying he died by suicide.

Reacting to this report, Mumbai police commissioner Singh said that his police had investigated the case very professionally. “The CBI had created a panel of AIIMS doctors who have justified our investigation and the findings of Cooper hospital and forensic laboratory. Except for a few people, nobody else was aware of our investigation still many have criticised the investigation,” he told Hindustan Times.

If you know someone – friend or family member – at risk of suicide, please reach out to them. The Suicide Prevention India Foundation maintains a list of telephone numbers (www.spif.in/seek-help/) they can call to speak in confidence. You could also refer them to the nearest hospital.

Facebook Removes 43 Accounts of Marketing Group RFA in Brazil Election

Haddad alleged on Monday that businessmen supporting Bolsonaro had been paying to bombard voters with misleading propaganda in violation of electoral law, which his rival denies.

Sao Paulo: Facebook Inc said on Monday it had removed 68 pages and 43 accounts associated with a Brazilian marketing group, Raposo Fernandes Associados (RFA), for violating the social media network’s misrepresentation and spam policies.

The newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo said the group was the main network of support for far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro on the internet.

Bolsonaro is expected to win a runoff on Sunday in Brazil‘s most polarised election in a generation in which social media has become the main battleground between the candidates.

Facebook said RFA created pages using fake accounts or multiple accounts with the same names and posted massive amounts of clickbait intended to direct people to third-party websites.

Also read: Hate or Hope: In a Bitter Election, Brazil Fights for Its Soul and Democracy

“Our decision to remove these pages was based on the behaviour of these actors – including using fake accounts and repeatedly posting spam – rather than on the type of content they were posting,” Facebook said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear how to contact RFA. Estado reported that owners of the company did not respond to requests for comment.

Facebook said it had detected spammers increasingly using sensational political content across the political spectrum to build an audience and drive traffic to their websites.

The company said the removal of the RFA pages was just one of many steps it had taken “to prevent bad actors from interfering with Brazil‘s elections on Facebook.”

Facebook‘s popular messaging service WhatsApp has also come under scrutiny in Brazil after leftist presidential contender Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party accused Bolsonaro’s supporters of using it for bulk messaging of misleading information during the campaign.

Also read: Backstory: Hidden Persuaders, Or How To Steal an Election Through Social Media

WhatsApp has more than 120 million users in Brazil, a country of nearly 210 million people, rivalling the reach of Facebook‘s main platform in one of the company’s biggest global markets.

The messaging service has become one of the main ways Brazilians keep in touch with friends, colleagues and family, and also an important channel for getting political information. But WhatsApp has been flooded with fake news and conspiracy theories.

Haddad alleged on Monday that businessmen supporting Bolsonaro had been paying to bombard voters with misleading propaganda in violation of electoral law, which his rival denies.

WhatsApp said it took the allegations seriously and was “taking immediate legal action to stop companies from sending bulk messages,” including sending cease-and-desist letters to the companies in question.