Facebook Closing Accounts: Why Now? Will India Be Affected?

Facebook and its parent company Meta are struggling with many problems as the prevailing disinformation is becoming a serious threat. But another big issue that needs to be addressed is the occurrence of fake accounts. Meta had recently shut down thousands of fake accounts that were created in China but pretended to be American.

It is mentioned that fake accounts were used as tools to spread hate content in the US presidential election next year. Catching fake accounts has been a challenge, but it looks like Meta managed to catch these scammers before they could do any serious damage.

News reports claim that Meta had closed about 4,800 accounts masquerading as Americans, which were found to be the culprit and had been set up by some unknown person from China. It’s not surprising to hear about possible connections to the Chinese government, but nothing has been confirmed or proven so far.

Instead of spreading fake content, as other networks have done, the accounts were used to reshare posts created by politicians, news outlets and others from X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

To look more like regular Facebook accounts, the network sometimes posted about fashion or pets. Earlier this year, some accounts suddenly replaced their American-sounding usernames and profile pictures with new ones that suggested they lived in India. The accounts then began spreading positive Chinese content from Tibet and India, illustrating how fake networks can be manipulated to focus on new destinations.

Now, reports of the removal of fake accounts are sure to bring concern to the rest of the world, especially India, which is also going to general elections next year.

The meta needs to pull up its socks and prepare for a challenging season as many countries battle it out with fake news and misinformation to fuel political tension. We hope that the social networking giant will take strict action against these types of accounts and continue to monitor the internet for such practices.

(with income from AP)