Meta, the owner of Facebook, announced on Thursday that it had removed 50 accounts and 98 pages linked to Bangladesh鈥檚 ruling Awami League for 鈥榗oordinated inauthentic behaviour,鈥� including criticism of the opposition ahead of the January 7 general election.
In a statement, Meta said that the pages, some followed by millions of people, were removed in the first quarter of the year.聽
Some of these pages used the names of existing news organisations in Bangladesh, Meta said.
The statement also said that some purported to be opposition supporters while posting content critical of the opposition.
Asked, AL central publicity and publications secretary Abdus Sobhan Golap told 抖阴精品 that the party was not aware of the matter.
鈥榃e have no comment on it,鈥� he said.
A network of such pages originated in Bangladesh and targeted domestic audiences in the country,聽 Meta said.
鈥楾he people behind this activity used fake accounts鈥攕ome of which were detected and disabled by our automated systems prior to our investigation鈥攖o post content and manage pages,鈥� it said.
Some of these pages posed as fictitious new entities, and some used the names of existing news organisations in Bangladesh, it said, adding that a few pages used the Bangladesh Nationalist Party in their name and posted anti-BNP content.
鈥楳any of these pages had a corresponding presence across several platforms, including YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and Telegram, in addition to their own websites,鈥� it stated.
The network posted primarily in Bengali and also in English about news and current events in Bangladesh, including elections, criticism of the BNP, allegations of the BNP鈥檚 corruption and its role in pre-election violence, as well as supportive commentary about the incumbent government, the ruling party, and its role in the technological development of Bangladesh, the statement said.
鈥榃e found this activity as a result of our internal investigation into spammy inauthentic amplification activity in the region that we removed last year, which led us to uncover a separate coordinated inauthentic behaviour network reported here,鈥� it said.
It also said that although the people behind it attempted to conceal their identity and coordination, Facebook鈥檚 investigation found links to individuals associated with the Awami League party and the Centre for Research and Information, a non-profit in Bangladesh.
It said that about 3.4 million accounts followed one or more of these pages.
The AL and its allies won almost every seat in the January 7 parliamentary elections as the main opposition parties boycotted the polls, demanding the restoration of the caretaker government system.
