KOCHI: With the Chengannur bypoll less than a month away, it is time for political parties to reinforce ‘branding’. Interestingly, frontline parties are concentrating on campaigning through social media. Cyber warriors and various IDs/pages with curious titles are the aids-in-chief to carry subtle propaganda forward. A tested and proven idea implemented by political parties at the national level, it is now evident in Kerala bypolls too. Apart from some popular IDs and pages existing on Facebook, various new IDs have appeared over the past two or three days, especially on posts below popular politicians and celebrities.
While analysts are yet to ascertain fully if these IDs are created by a group as per the instruction of political parties, they said there are sure shot signs of cyber campaigns.“No political party has confessed so far they have an active cyber group for propaganda. However, as per our assumption, various political parties have tested social media propaganda successfully in India during recent elections. A similar attempt is evident in our state too,” said Adarsh V K, a Facebook analyst. He said, right from the profile name, the IDs show a leniency towards sarcasm.
For instance, one Facebook page named ‘Sanjeevani’ - which has nearly 50,000 followers - mainly focuses on sarcastic posts.However, it is not easy to identify from the look of the page and the style of the post whether it is a pro-BJP or anti-BJP page. Pages like Outspoken, Porali Shaji and Twitter IDs like Vidal Castro too have a good number of followers.
“Real sarcasm is better than a simple endorsement of politicians and parties,” said Nujum J N, a Facebook user.“At least, it will make people think of an issue, analyse its pros and cons. But we will have to prevent spreading of fake news.” Some popular IDs, Adarsh said, can be created by popular persons themselves.“Sometimes, these IDs will be created by ardent party workers. We don’t know who is behind these IDs,” he said.Cyberdome nodal officer Manoj Abraham told Express many people could be having several IDs.