How IT companies are using Facebook, Twitter to malign rivals: Cobrapost expose

New Delhi: A new sting operation by website Cobrapost claims to expose how some IT companies are misusing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to help politicians get lakhs of fake followers, launch smear campaigns against rivals and even allegedly spread communal tension, for cash.  

The sting purportedly features about two dozen such small companies that allegedly claimed they offer services like "creating fake profiles or buying likes" or "by buying packages of followers" in election season. Among their clients, they allegedly claim, are leading politicians and political parties, corporate houses and even government officials, Cobrapost said.

In a more sinister spin-off, one man allegedly offered not just to provide an undercover journalist with booth-wise demographics of voters, also to detonate a bomb  or spread rumours of a riot-like situation to ensure voters from a particular community did not turn up to vote on polling day.

The man elucidates on video by saying, "We knew Muslims wouldn't vote for (a particular) candidate. There were 60% voters in the area, so we egineered riots, exploded hand bombs. No Muslim voter showed up. The candidate won."

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Cobrapost said it sent out its journalist masquerading as a man fronting for a politician he called Netaji, who he said wanted to purchase an image-building package on social media, with character assassination of his rival thrown in. The objective: to win an assembly seat, then a ticket for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and eventually a cabinet berth.   

Some companies allegedly offered to post negative content against Netaji's rivals using proxy servers to avoid detection and even to hack into the computers of other individuals to post defamatory content using their IPs.

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Cobrapost's Aniruddh Bahal points out that these alleged actions violate existing laws such as the Indian Penal Code, the Information Technology Act 2000 and others.

The misuse of social media and the ease with which it can be done has been a matter of public debate, with concern being voiced in fora like a Chief Ministers' conference in Delhi.

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"I had raised these issues in the recent Intelligence Bureau conference. My worry is being proved right," Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said.

The BJP, however, 'dismissed' the sting operation. Party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said, "Congress has achieved a new low. It is frustrated by the growing popularity of Modi."