Following up on a previous report, Mumbai Police has reportedly found 50,000 additional fake accounts used to malign and defame the police department as well as the Maharashtra Government. The previous report said that social media accounts were created under fake names to trend particular topics using hashtags and other related means.
Read - Mumbai Police Chief Identifies Fake Accounts Used To Defame The Govt And Police
Mumbai Police has added that the investigation has now uncovered a total of 1.5 lakh fake accounts used or created shortly after the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput in June. The report added that the accused used a paid program to increase the number of engagement (retweets or likes) on a particular post or hashtag. Mumbai Police claims that this was done to divert the attention of the law enforcement agencies that were investigating the death of the actor.
A press release by Mumbai Police said that the accused user(s) also trended topics negative to the state government, the commissioner of police as well as the Mumbai Police using hashtags on Twitter. The release further stated that several fake accounts were created that were impersonating celebrities and personalities including Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon.
“During the investigation, we found that these fake accounts are controlled by a “BOT”. A single BOT program, which is a commercial tool and used for negative trending, has the power of 500 tweets/retweets per request and a huge capacity of 5 million tweets per month. These are paid programs which have the power to tweet in any language and can be executed from any part of the world using a proxy server to remain anonymous” Mumbai Police stated in the press release.
The release went on to say that the case was handled by a team of cyber and forensic experts who generated the report using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to closely analyze the hashtags as well as the accounts that were created between June 2020 and October 2020.
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The press release also stated that a large number of accounts that were created at the time are now disappearing, while some are also deleting the negative comments and posts/tweets made at the time. Furthermore, these accounts are said to be operating outside the country, primarily in China, Panama, and Nepal.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been somewhat silent with regard to its conclusions of the report provided by AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences). The Congress party recently questioned the reasons for the delay in the publishing of the CBI report.
Congress spokesperson Sachin Sawant also alleged that the BJP-led Central Government was trying to conceal the disclosure of the CBI report until the Bihar elections are concluded.
Read - Congress Questions CBI Over Its Silence On SSR Death Case
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