Investigation Reveals Top Social Election Ad Spenders in India Violate Facebook Rules
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| Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, speaks next to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook in Menlo Park, California, Sunday, September 27, 2015 [Jeff Chiu/AP Photo |
An Al Jazeera investigation has uncovered that many of the top social election ad spenders in India are Facebook pages bought and sold in violation of the company’s rules.
In 2019, political consultant Tushar Giri met with a veteran leader from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who had just lost a state legislature election. The leader's team demanded Giri buy shadow Facebook pages to influence the narrative and plot a political comeback. Giri provided a page run by his firm, which promoted BJP’s Hindu majoritarian views under the guise of current affairs, amassing nearly 800,000 followers before becoming defunct.
As the 2024 election campaign approached, Giri found a new buyer for the page: a politician in Madhya Pradesh who had switched to the BJP. The page, repurposed to promote this politician, illustrates the widespread practice of using shadow Facebook pages to influence voters by bypassing Facebook’s scrutiny.
Meta, Facebook's parent company, prohibits users from selling, buying, or exchanging accounts or operating under false identities. However, the investigation revealed that these rules are routinely violated during India’s elections. These surrogate pages allow owners to evade Meta’s scrutiny of new political advertisers, promoting content that targets religious minorities, spreads conspiracy theories, and disseminates election disinformation.
India, Facebook’s largest market with over 314 million users, sees these pages play a crucial role in political campaigns, especially during crises. “It is a parallel business model during elections,” said Giri. His firm runs nearly 40 such pages, ready for sale.
A study by the Tech Transparency Project confirmed the existence of this black market. Analysis by Al Jazeera found that nearly half of the top 20 spenders on political ads in the last 90 days were surrogate pages hiding their true identity.
The black market thrives because it helps political campaigns avoid Meta’s ad review process, which requires advertisers to submit government-issued ID and receive a verification mail. Buying existing page accounts that have already passed these steps allows campaigns to circumvent Facebook’s review mechanisms.
Experts say this market is booming as it serves political campaigns’ needs. For instance, Shubham Mishra, a BJP leader, acknowledged using surrogate pages to promote Prime Minister Modi’s campaign in Varanasi. These pages, posing as news hubs but injecting pro-Modi content, help avoid being perceived as spam by voters.
Hamraj Singh, a political consultant, highlighted that using such pages also helps campaigns avoid campaign finance restrictions. “A ‘fan page’ can push anything and the candidate can always disown it,” he said.
The price for these pages varies based on reach, engagement, and the demography of followers. A page with 100,000 followers can sell for $700 to $1,200, while one with a million followers could fetch up to $24,000.
The BJP is not alone in this practice; opposition parties also use surrogate pages. However, BJP-aligned pages dominate the top 20 ad spenders. Recent studies by India Civil Watch International and other organizations exposed far-right networks of pages pushing pro-BJP content and divisive narratives targeting minorities and opposition leaders.
During the 2019 elections, Facebook shut down hundreds of pages for “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” but the problem has only grown. A study identified 22 of the top 100 ad spenders as far-right pages supporting the BJP, with a total spend of over $1 million.
Al Jazeera’s attempts to contact the top 20 ad spenders were unsuccessful, as provided phone numbers were inaccessible and websites were often shells.
In an experiment, civil society groups created AI-manipulated ads containing disinformation and incitements to violence, which Meta approved for publication, despite its policies against such content. Meta responded that its processes involve multiple layers of scrutiny, and the ads would have faced further review.
Similarly, YouTube approved every single ad in an investigation by Global Witness and Access Now, despite containing disinformation and incitements to violence. YouTube defended its processes, stating the ads were withdrawn before further reviews.
Both Meta and Google have pledged to prevent AI tools from being used to disrupt elections, but experts argue they are not doing enough to uphold this commitment.
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