IT companies leveraging social media for politicians, personalities

Certain IT companies have been abusing social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to help politicians gain lakhs of fake followers, launch smear campaigns against rivals and even allegedly spread communal tension, for cash, website Cobrapost exposed in a sting operation.

The sting purportedly features about two dozen such small companies that allegedly claimed they offered services like "creating fake profiles or buying likes" or "by buying packages of followers" during the election season.

These firms allegedly claim to have clients among leading politicians, political parties, corporate houses and even government officials, according to the Cobrapost revelations.

One operator also offered services of an undercover journalist with booth-wise demographics of voters, and in a rank perversion of the electoral process even firebombing or rumour mongering services to spread fears of riots, aimed at keeping voters of particular community from turning up to vote on polling day.

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, with the objective of winning an assembly seat, then a ticket for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and eventually a cabinet berth. 

Cobrapost's revelations, dubbed Operation Blue Virus, essentially meant that with money in hand, any person or corporate entity, could create an impression of immense popularity and a larger-than-life persona in the online world.

Among the users of these services, according to these IT firms are political parties, including the BJP and the Congress, big and small corporate houses, NGOs and tainted government officials.

Citing the Muzaffarnagar riots, Cobrapost pointed out that online media campaigns were even used to fan communal violence. The site said the business of online reputation management was like ''Goebbellian propaganda'' to ''sway'' the opinion of a ''gullible public''.