India: Operation Blue Virus Blows The Cover Social Media - how some leaders buy hate or popularity | Cobrapost expose

Cobrapost exposes how social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and others are coming in handy for politicians to artificially boost their popularity, and malign their opponents, with help of IT companies across India which specialize in providing customized online reputation management services, for a fee. About two dozen such companies have been uncovered. There is little social about social media.

This is what Operation Blue Virus, an undercover investigation by Cobrapost, shows, uncovering how IT companies across the country are engaged in a racket of reputation management, offering fake fan-following on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, and negative publicity to sully the reputation of a political leader, or a corporate house, for money. Among their clients are corporate houses, big or small, NGOs, scam-tainted senior government officials, individual politicians and political parties.

Posing as a front man for an imagined politician from an opposition party, Cobrapost Associate Editor Syed Masroor Hasan, approached over two dozen IT companies with a simple request: Netaji, his master, wants to launch a campaign on social media before coming assembly elections. But his opponent’s reputation has to be destroyed with negative publicity, simultaneously. This will help Netaji win not only assembly election with a handsome margin but also a Lok Sabha ticket in parliamentary elections due in 2014, and then a Cabinet berth. Budget is not a problem.

All companies exposed offered Hasan to create a fan-following, not necessarily genuine, on Facebook and Twitter, in lakhs, destroy the reputation of a political opponent of Netaji Hasan was supposedly representing with negative publicity, in myriad ways. Some of them offered to provide demographic data on voters, divided on linguistic and communal lines, for effective booth management to win election. Some of them offered to hire journalists or even detectives to throw muck at Netaji’s opponent. Some of them went on to the extent of offering services like buying votes of the poor and spreading rumours or exploding a bomb to force a particular minority community stay indoors on polling day, so bogus votes could be cast. They would use different IP addresses, offshore servers, proxy codes or wireless connections, disable the tracking device of a computer system and destroy the same when the job is over, to cover their tracks. The asking price for these reputation management services ranged from a few lakhs to a couple of crores, to be paid in cash. ↵

Many of these malpractices violate various laws, such as the Information Technology Act 2000, the Representation of the People Act 1951 and the Income Tax Act 1961, and are as such punishable under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Operation Blue Virus also makes certain stunning revelations. If the claims of the companies exposed are to be believed, among political parties, BJP is at the forefront in social media campaign, so is its Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi, with scores of companies working overtime for him. This puts a question mark on the claims of the BJP leadership that there is a wind blowing in favour of their party and Narendra Modi. The larger-than-life-image that Team Modi has assiduously carved out for Modi over the past one decade may not be that real, rather invented, and is reminiscent of the Goebbellian propaganda, to sway the opinion of gullible public. It is no surprise then that even a milder criticism of the BJP’s star campaigner invites scathing attacks from his followers on social media, claimed to be in millions in count. ↵

However, more disturbing is the use of social media for fanning communal sentiments by vested interests. Social media has its share of blame for riots in Muzaffar Nagar or the exodus of Northeastern ‘Chinis’ from cities across India. What requires to be done in the wake of Operation Blue Virus is a thorough investigation into the functioning of the IT companies in question and bring them to justice and a revisit of country’s cyber laws to plug the loopholes, both in letter and in implementation, without impinging on freedom of speech. Otherwise, it will be not too long before social media, ubiquitous, unbridled and untamed, becomes the bane of society with all its attendant ills.

We are giving here excerpts of selected case studies of the IT companies Cobrapost has exposed in the course of its Operation Blue Virus. .. read more:
http://www.cobrapost.com/index.php/news-detail?nid=4026&cid=23