Facebook, Twitter remove 503 posts which violated EC's model code of conduct

As Election season begins in full swing, social media platforms like Facebook, and Twitter where a lot of misinformation campaigns are being conducted, are pulling down posts that violate Election Commission’s model code of conduct (MCC). [caption id=“attachment_4227201” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”] Twitter logo . Reuters[/caption] As per a report by IANS, a total of 503 posts have been pulled down by the social media giants. EC Director General Dhirendra Ojha told reporters that of these, 500 posts were removed by Facebook alone. Twitter and WhatsApp removed two and one posts respectively after getting complaints. “Resolution of eight complaints with Facebook and 39 with Twitter is still awaited,” he added, as per the report. Facebook’s Product Management for Civic Integrity division Samidh Chakrabarti has called Indian elections a **"top priority,"** and has said that the company in a “tremendous amount of efforts over the last two years” to prepare for the polls. The Election Commission of India is trying to rein in social media giants such as Google, Twitter, and Facebook to prevent the release of user data and to curb the spread of politically motivated manipulative information. Social media companies have presented a “ **Voluntary Code of Ethics for the General Elections 2019** ” to the election monitoring body, a new requirement this year. “We are working hard to prevent bad actors from interfering with elections on Facebook,” Chakrabarti said, adding that Facebook has tripled the number of people working on safety and security to 30,000. India reportedly has the highest number of Facebook users in the world, with more than 300 million. That is about a third of the 900 million people eligible to vote in 2019. With inputs from AP