The Facebook story of Shivnath Thukral gets shadier, and as institutes are taken over, the Opposition remains helpless.
Just a single story of a powerful company’s links to the government The Facebook story of Shivnath Thukral gets shadier, known for his proximity to the Modi government part of the 2013 election campaign. Bigwigs linked to the elections have made PM Modi’s feet stronger. Shivnath Thukral, a public policy director, India, at WhatsApp Inc (owned by Facebook), Opalina Technologies, where he was a director with a 7.5% stake, and his father still holds a stake.
Shivnath Thukral has provided software solutions for PM Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the right-wing Hindu nationalist party that has been the ruling party of India since 2014, and militantly worked as a part of Narendra Modi’s election campaign in 2013 while Facebook India was fully cognizant of this.
Opalina had also developed a Twitter bot and Facebook “profile photo frame” all used in BJP’s “Main bhi Chowkidar” hashtag campaign.
News Laundry delivered a detailed article revealing the strong BJP connections with Shivnath Thukra evident from tweets that the “info 2020” third-party Twitter client is an Opalina product.
Opalina’s Links to the Government
Opalina had also developed the CottonIsCool hashtag campaign that many high-profile users linked to the government used.
It is no small secret that Opalina with its employees had directly aided in PM Modi’s election and hashtag campaigns, with Facebook being fully aware of it.
Opalina products were used to moderate comments on Modi’s Facebook page, and manage letters received by PMO. According to News Laundry, an Opalina employee named Vimal Kumar, in his resume that was previously uploaded to his LinkedIn profile, described the projects he executed for his company. Kumar’s resume, which is no longer visible on his LinkedIn profile, was retrieved and archived by these reporters while it was still visible.
When contacted, Kumar claimed he didn’t execute these projects and it must have been a mistake on his part to mention those projects in his Linkedin profile. Kumar had described two projects that he worked on executing.
The first is the “NM Comments Moderation Panel”, which was described as a panel for the moderation of comments received from users on Narendra Modi’s Facebook page.
The second project listed in Vimal Kumar’s resume was for the prime minister’s office, or PMO, an institution of the Indian government. This project, named “NM Letters”, is described as a content management system used in the PMO to manage letters received by it.
When reporters connected to Kumar over the phone to ask him whether he had been asked by his employer (Opalina) to take down his resume from LinkedIn, he said that he had not been asked to do so. When once again News Laundry reporters asked him whether he had indeed worked on the projects that he had listed on his resume, he replied he had not.
Why then had he listed them on his resume? Vimal Kumar responded: “That must have been by mistake.” What was the need to hide information that had already been in the public purview?
Opalina can also be connected to a website, The True Picture, which supports Modi and is accused of spreading disinformation. Web searches reveal that articles uploaded to the website are also hosted on a www.opalina.in staging platform. The Delhi-based BlueKraft Digital Services runs this website.
On News Laundry’s questioning, Opalina’s Gaurav Sharma said, “The questions you pose to us are nothing further than a fishing and roving inquiry calling upon our company to share confidential and proprietary information to serve your oblique purposes. We also reserve our rights to take every possible step as we may be advised in accordance with the law to protect our proprietary information and we will not hesitate to file criminal complaints about any attempt/ abetment for stealing any proprietary information owned by our company.”
All Institutes Complicit and Opposition in India Helpless:
In 2017, Facebook owner, Mark Zuckerberg said that he was “deeply sorry about the role Facebook played in the 2016 US Presidential election” and wrote, “For those I hurt this year, I ask forgiveness and I will try to be better.”
Zuckerberg went on to write, “For the ways my work was used to divide people rather than bring us together, I ask forgiveness and I will work to do better.”
There is an awareness that right-wing extremists have permeated Facebook to control its reigns, and not only Facebook but the heart of corporate, every institution, be it the courts, the media, the schools, the police, the Army, and every so-called independent institution seeking to change the DNA of these institutions and Indians are pretty much helpless.
Why is the Opposition so helpless at this time?
One would say many factors play a role in paralyzing the Opposition, but will chalk out three for now.
Money of the BJP
The first is money being the largest, which was able to “buy” institutions. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earns a heavy income through fuel taxes earning Rs 27 lakh crore just through fuel taxes.
Also their income during the financial year 2019-20 saw a 50 percent jump as it earned heavily from electoral bonds and donations from various sources, according to the annual audit report published by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
Pegasus Spyware Prey Held Opposition Paralyzed
The second is Pegasus, spyware spying on bigwigs and allegedly holding them captive through blackmail. It is said that the previous chief justice of India was blackmailed this way and silenced.
In India, the Pegasus Project investigations alleged that the Pegasus spyware was used on ministers, opposition leaders, political strategists and tacticians, journalists, activists, minority leaders, supreme court judges, religious leaders, administrators like Election Commissioners, and heads of Central Bureau of Investigation and many other agencies and individuals.
Why are many Opposition leaders rather silent? They make just enough noise to make the public aware they are alive and then they slide back into their caves, hibernating for long seasons.
Tek Fog: The most elaborate online political manipulation operation ever discovered
The third is Tek Fog, a software application, operable via a mobile phone reportedly used by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to infiltrate social media platforms in order to promote favorable perspectives through misinformation and prey on perceived opponents.
The application also managed a huge database of Indian citizens, based on occupation, religion, age, gender, etc., and delivered targeted insults and criticism.
A key function of the software was to manipulate trending features on Twitter and Facebook, by automatically sharing or retweeting posts, and promoting existing hashtags to trending levels.
Le Monde commented that it is perhaps the most elaborate online political manipulation operation ever discovered.
Social Media, the Opposition, and even the general public are aware of all connections and happenings and never took any steps to curb misinformation or hate speech. While netizens criticize all that is going on, nothing much can be done. Perhaps not everyone is aware of the repercussions where in time, they themselves will be victims of the system they created. And then it will be too late to cry. It is a lost drowning system unless a savior arrives to save the system in the nick of time!