Every political party acknowledges that social media plays a very important role in moulding the public opinion, because these days the social media groups have the largest reach among the people.
Almost all the parties have their own exclusive social media teams, whose objective is to promote their own parties, but also counter the negative campaign launched by the rival parties.
It is fine, if they are confined to this extent. But these days, the political parties are making use of social media teams to malign the rivals and are even going to the extent of character assassination through dirty messages, morphing of images, deep fake videos and even concocted stories.
And there are certain so-called digital newspapers, obviously funded by political parties, are indulging in spreading of vulgar news and running down the rival parties by attributing even sexcapades to their women wing leaders.
For the last 24 hours, a digital media paper has been in circulation on social media groups stooping down to spread the news that the TDP leadership has been forcing its women’s wing leaders to trap neutral and influential voters into sexual affairs using the party’s women social media supporters.
According to this report, TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh had a meeting with some TDP women wing leaders recently and asked them to offer attractive women activists and social media influencers to trap industrialists, influential people and neutral influencers in the constituencies where the party has little chances of winning.
Their job is to trap these influential people into sex trade and later blackmail them. Even TDP women social media influencers among the NRIs, who are very active on social media and are very popular, are being roped into this activity, the report said.
It also quoted a party source as saying that a popular NRI social media activist of the TDP, who was recently arrested on coming to Hyderabad and was released later, is playing the role of a broker for this activity of throwing the bait of offering attractive women to lure neutral voters.
Well, there is no head or tail to this report nor is there any basis for the people to believe it. Yet, it stands as an example how the parties stoop to low levels of making use of social media groups to malign the rivals!
