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Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

thewire.in

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Re: Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

#31

Post by throwaway_42070 »

throwaway_42069 wrote: post #19

I don't usually post on political topics with my main account but the title is confusing and is in my opinion misleading. The Tek Fog app, according to this report, targets people including women journalist who are critical of current PM of India or the Party BJP. Most journalists in India are not critical of PM Modi but a few of them are, and in fact you will never find this report on the Indian MSM. A better title…

True, the purpose seems to be to silence voices critical of the BJP. The trolling software maintains databases of many categories of people to help customize the harassment.

But this article talks specifically about attacking women journalists in particular, using targeted language like calling them prostitutes or referring to their specific body parts or skin color, etc. The headline seems fine to me.

Re: Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

#32

Post by throwaway_42070 »

yutijke wrote: post #15

Tek fog is essentially automated trolling used to target political opponents. The previous articles by TheWire on this were of better quality and didn't seem to stretch facts to push a narrative. They have given no evidence that only women journalists were targeted primarily. They sound like one of the opinion pieces saying "Hurricane Katrina strikes ..., women specifically targeted/affected". I will note that regard…

The article describes targeted language like calling the journalists prostitutes or referring to their specific body parts or skin color, threatening rape, etc. How is this not targeting women specifically?

This is classic Gamergate style attack, with misogyny, doxxing, etc. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_(harassment_campaign...]

Re: Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

#33

Post by causi »

nindalf wrote: post #2

OP - don’t take it personal if this thread is flagged and removed from the front page. Yes, it is interesting and yes it has a fascinating tech angle to it. Especially interesting for me is how easily subverted social media is with the right tech. But you know who this is indirectly critical of even if he is not mentioned. There are enough devotees of that person on HN that every thread tangentially involving him bec…

Oh yeah. "Indian government" is on my list of "Things HN is particularly tetchy about" that you're better off just not having an opinion of because you're going to get twenty points in the first 15 minutes and then the downvote squad will take you to -4 and flagged within two hours.

Re: Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

#34

Post by throwaway_42070 »

DocTomoe wrote: post #28
nindalf wrote: post #2

OP - don’t take it personal if this thread is flagged and removed from the front page. Yes, it is interesting and yes it has a fascinating tech angle to it. Especially interesting for me is how easily subverted social media is with the right tech. But you know who this is indirectly critical of even if he is not mentioned. There are enough devotees of that person on HN that every thread tangentially involving him bec…

Could you please explain this apparent Indian in-joke for us in the rest of the world? It would make understanding your concerns easier and would give us an interesting sight of what happens around the world instead of just spreading hush-hush conspiracy theories.

The BJP, India’s ruling party whose leader is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has an active paid “IT cell” and a coordinated army of trolls. The party also has enthusiastic civilian supporters whom opponents call “Bhakts” or devotees of Modi. These people regularly mobilize to discover and shut down critical commentary anywhere on the Internet.

The commenter is saying that HN is often subjected to these devotees’ campaigns. He is probably right, in my opinion. I am Indian and most of my friends and family are devotees. They often coordinate their outrage on WhatsApp groups. Someone will post links to critical articles and the others will jump on them.

Re: Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

#37

Post by Tanjreeve »

throwaway_87576 wrote: post #36

Perhaps we need an antifa style hacking group to take down infra/tech like this which is inherently anti-democratic ? I'd love someone to destroy that cloud database and put Tek Fog back at square 1.

There would be another one if there isn't already. The core way of stopping this is taking online discussions to more than 3-4 platforms that can be easily dominated with modest resources many of which actively enable it through providing APIs and turning a blind eye to bot traffic.

Re: Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

#38

Post by sateesh »

throwaway_42069 wrote: post #19

I don't usually post on political topics with my main account but the title is confusing and is in my opinion misleading. The Tek Fog app, according to this report, targets people including women journalist who are critical of current PM of India or the Party BJP. Most journalists in India are not critical of PM Modi but a few of them are, and in fact you will never find this report on the Indian MSM. A better title…

Correcting you, this was indeed reported in the MSM. For example see: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tek+fog&t=canonical&iar=news&ia=ne...

Re: Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

#39

Post by _kw2l »

throwaway_42070 wrote: post #34
DocTomoe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you please explain this apparent Indian in-joke for us in the rest of the world? It would make understanding your concerns easier and would give us an interesting sight of what happens around the world instead of just spreading hush-hush conspiracy theories.

The BJP, India’s ruling party whose leader is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has an active paid “IT cell” and a coordinated army of trolls. The party also has enthusiastic civilian supporters whom opponents call “Bhakts” or devotees of Modi. These people regularly mobilize to discover and shut down critical commentary anywhere on the Internet. The commenter is saying that HN is often subjected to these devotees’ campa…

Why are people so devoted?

Re: Tek Fog in Action: Targeting Women Journalists

#40

Post by gigglesupstairs »

_kw2l wrote: post #39
throwaway_42070 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BJP, India’s ruling party whose leader is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has an active paid “IT cell” and a coordinated army of trolls. The party also has enthusiastic civilian supporters whom opponents call “Bhakts” or devotees of Modi. These people regularly mobilize to discover and shut down critical commentary anywhere on the Internet. The commenter is saying that HN is often subjected to these devotees’ campa…

Why are people so devoted?

Religion. Hindutva - an extremist offshoot of Hinduism in this case.
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