Headlines
Trolls against Modi critics managed by BJP, says AAP IT chief
By
Prashant KumarNew Delhi, Sep 10
The social media attacks
against people who criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his
governance policies are by and large organised by the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP), according to a senior leader of the Aam Aadmi Party.
The
IT chief of AAP, Ankit Lal, says the BJP lets loose the trolls on
internet through "direct and indirect" means. In cyber user parlance,
trolls are those who disrupt conversation through abusive language or
personal attacks, often inflammatory.
"The people who write
against Modi critics are the ones who are closely followed by the prime
minister himself or the accounts related to the Bharatiya Janata Party,
which makes it clear who the attackers are," Ankit told IANS in an
interview here.
"Ask anyone who has been hounded as to who the
trouble makers are. There are screenshots available in public domain of
the alleged hatemongers on various occasions," he added.
The
comments come days after BJP IT chief Arvind Gupta told IANS that the
frenzied reactions of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters on social
media against anyone strongly critical of Modi were not organised by the
party.
Ankit also alleged that the prime minister "meets and
supports" people who are known "trouble-makers" and "hate-mongers" on
the social media.
"The prime minister met so called social media
activists, who in reality are not activists but known abusers who have
on many occasions created problems with their social media activities,"
he said.
"Modi should not follow such people publicly otherwise
it will imply that he is endorsing such action, which is a matter of
concern," he added.
Asked if the Aam Aadmi party was the biggest
challenge to the BJP on social media, Ankit said: "Well, their actions
say so. Why otherwise would a party which has the government at the
centre and various states pay so much attention to a party with only
four members of parliament and a government in only one state?"
On
the hashtag trending strategy adopted by the parties nowadays on the
micro-blogging site Twitter, the 31-year-old AAP tech czar said: "As a
party we stay away from counter trends and try and focus more on our own
work. However, some supporters do participate with counter trending and
it's more of a game of dominance that we have been playing well."
Hashtag
trending is adopted by parties to dislodge a popular topic by creating
something which will attract attention and then advising their followers
to tweet on it.
Asked about the challenges on virtual media,
Lal said getting rid of anti-social and unidentified people posting
absurd comments and abuses on behalf of the party was one of the biggest
challenges his team had.
"We make sure that people who were
tweeting and abusing on our behalf are blocked and taken care of, which
BJP didn't even care for," he said.
But the man behind the
successful social media pages of AAP says that Facebbok and Twitter have
reached a sort of saturation point which could lead to stagnation in
the growth of the sites, adding the parties that are turning to the
virtual media now would not be able to reap the benefits the early birds
had.
(Prashant Kumar can be contacted at [email protected]. He tweets at: @prashant_ians)