Facebook Did Not Block Fake Accounts Linked To BJP MP: Whistleblower

Whistleblower Sophie Zhang alleges the BJP, the Congress, and the AAP used fake accounts to influence the polls, however, only the network of accounts directly linked to a BJP MP was not removed by Facebook.

A former data scientist at Facebook has claimed the social networking giant took selective action against fake accounts in the run-up to last year's Delhi elections. Sophie Zhang, who has now turned whistleblower, alleges the BJP, the Congress, and the Aam Aadmi Party used fake accounts to influence the polls, however, only the network of accounts directly linked to a BJP lawmaker was not removed by Facebook.

"We took down four out of the five networks, but the fifth one - at the last moment, right before we were going to take it down, we realised that it was tied to a BJP politician, a Member of Lok Sabha, and as soon as they realised that, I could not get an answer from anyone on what's going to be done with this network of fake accounts," Ms Zhang, who worked with Facebook for three years till last month, told NDTV.

Ms Zhang said she found four fake networks in late 2019 of which two supported the BJP and the other two Congress. "We took down three of the networks, two INC, one BJP network. We were about to take down the last network but suddenly they stopped because they realized that the fourth network was directly, personally run by the BJP politician and that was the network that I was unable to do anything about."

A month later, in January 2020, Ms Zhang claims she discovered a network of "thousands of accounts" that was being used to spread pro-AAP political messages and the accounts were falsely portraying themselves as BJP supporters who had voted for PM Modi and were choosing to support AAP in the Delhi elections for the "apparent purpose of winning over other BJP supporters".