Tek Fog: Expose Saffron Brigade’s Hate Factory and Devious Surveillance
An investigative study by the Wire shockingly revealed the presence of a sophisticated app called Tek Fog, which the saffron brigade uses to hijack Twitter trends and manipulate WhatsApp to spread hate propaganda and harass the critics of the ruling regime. Tek Fog can bypass controls like email and text-message verification of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter. Tek Fog also provides master control for several Twitter accounts, including fake one, pushing hate – filled contents and hashtags. On WhatsApp, Tek Fog, using inactive accounts, can phish personal information of potential targets to harass and troll them.
Though the Tek fog sophistication takes online hate and surveillance to an altogether new level, this is nothing new for the saffron brigade. Months back, the Newslaundry portal did an investigative story on a “Hindu Ecosystem” group on Telegram formed on November 16 2020 by BJP leader Kapil Mishra, notorious for inciting the February 2020 Delhi violence with his hate-speech. Two journalists infiltrated the group and studied how it worked. They gathered proof that the group systematically prepared and disseminated materials inciting hatred against Muslim, Christian, and Sikh minorities, amplifying the hatred through toolkits producing automated Twitter storms with divisive hashtags, and spreading fake conspiracy theories designed to poison minds. Mishra recruited members for his hate ecosystem on Twitter – openly. The hate-filled Twitter storms also aired openly, repeatedly.
We have also seen the Modi Government’s use of Israeli “Pegasus” spyware technology to secretly and illegally hack into and take control of the phones of thousands of Opposition leaders, journalists, Supreme Court judges, activists and other Indian citizens. Pegasus allows remote and complete access to electronic devices (phones, laptops) – call records, messages, audio and video, all apps being used. All personal and intimate details of one’s life are laid bare to those controlling the spyware. In other words, the mobile phone purchased by an individual essentially allows entire private life to be accessed by someone else, with no consequences.
On behalf of AISA, we demand an independent time – bound investigation in the Tek Fog scandal to ensure that those responsible for the propagation of hate filled ideology are identified and prosecuted. We must also unitedly resist the communal casteist venoms of the saffron brigade – online and in the streets.
