This has been oft-rumoured over the past few years and it's good in a way to see proof.<p>Even without tools like this, the BJP are already known to have groups of people employed to push their messages across social media and reply to any dissenting posts.<p>It's a shame Congress is so bad at keeping up with the times to mount an effective counter party. While the AAP are too small.
Site has weird history re-writing behavior, link should be:<p><a href="https://thewire.in/tech/tek-fog-bjp-cyber-troops-app" rel="nofollow">https://thewire.in/tech/tek-fog-bjp-cyber-troops-app</a>
The alleged "antagonist" refutes this article [1] as a lie.<p>I'm not saying it isn't true.<p>[1] <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/DevangVDave" rel="nofollow">https://mobile.twitter.com/DevangVDave</a>
I consider myself an ex-anonymous guy from the days of the yore. Think back in 2010. Around the same time, twitter was heating up as a "troll war" between three major groups. 1. Pro India. 2. Pro Pakistan. 3. Pro Kashmir independence.
I was in the 3rd group and I remember spending time, 14 hours at times to fighting trolls. There was some sort of flame wars but nothing too difficult. I remember learning a lot of stuff, improving my capabilities. I've doxed people but that was not fun.<p>The point is, I would have loved to have something like this back in 2009-2012.
<i>The screenshots also show that these accounts are created using the in-app features that allow individual operatives to generate 'temporary' email addresses, activate phone numbers and by-pass programming limitations, and email and OTP verification set by WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Telegram.</i><p>How do they verify phone number OTP's? Do they have access to SMS data through telecom companies too?
SMS OTP's are insecure anyway.
Anecdotally, I feel that some sort of tool like this is being used on YouTube as well. I don't use other 'social media' platforms.<p>I've created two accounts, one where I mostly watch left-wing videos and one where I watch more right-wing videos. Mostly local news and political discussions.<p>From the comment sections, it seems that the left-wing videos are very often 'under attack', as if someone sees a new upload from a channel and shares the link in a group, where group members comment (and dislike, RIP) in a negative way and about semi-related topics. Mostly conservative rhetoric and lately conspiracy stuff as well. Also upvoting of similar comments and negative replies to comments from 'normal' viewers.<p>I don't see it that often anymore in the past few months, but last year it looked like an obvious pattern to manipulate the discussion. Maybe the comments are all from unconnected individuals, but it felt unnatural and coordinated.<p>Actually you don't need sophisticated tools for this, just create a WhatsApp/Telegram group with a couple hundred fanatics that share links with each other to bash/hate on.
Archive link in case this article is removed:
<a href="https://archive.is/HMYkr" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/HMYkr</a>
The company that built this (as per the article) is Persistent Systems, a public company with close ties to the Indian Government.<p>Their shareholders absolutely deserve an explanation.
Focus on "right-wing propaganda" is important enough to be included in headline, but never mentioned again. Suggests to me that this article is scaremongering. Do you really think any organized group isn't using social media automation at this point, be that left or right?