Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Cash for anti- ADMK blogs, DMK lures bloggers.

A few days after the drama of Vaiko accusing and then apologizing to Karunanidhi for indulging in the world’s oldest profession, here comes the news about the latest digital way in which DMK tries to rope in bloggers into that oldest profession!

The offer is to pay 100 rupees for a blog that will be supplied to the blogger every day. There will be 3 such blogs which will contain anti ADMK material that the blogger has to copy and post it in his blog as his own idea. The material may not be a direct attack on the ADMK but a clever play of words with facts and figures so that the readers may not suspect the blogger as a handle of DMK.  The money is more if the blogger introduces other bloggers to carry out this oldest profession in digital world. 

This job is done for the DMK by a Mumbai based Brand consultant.  Mail transaction of this kind of digital prostitution is reproduced here.


(click the image to enlarge)




The conversation between the reporter of The New Indian Express (who exposed this) and the employee of the agency who work for the DMK can be heard here:



This kind of campaign had already taken off in the social media. The twisted news on Chennai floods was first posted by a DMK man whose father worked as a lawyer to Karunanidhi. His vicious post was quoted by the Tamil daily Dinamalar the next day and passed off as a news item saying that the flood was caused by the delay in opening the flood gates as the flood gate operators waited for Jayalalithaa’s ‘orders’! Times of India produced an article on the same lines quoting him and another unknown writer who wrote from her desk top and not from the ground. This idea went round and round until the facts were exposed by another blogger (Read here).  

This kind of false propaganda on social media platform done by one’s own volition or as party organs is acceptable as free speech. But engaging an agency to hire bloggers to post the propaganda material to reach to the unsuspecting readers who would be thinking that it is their favourite blogger’s own idea is nothing but making the bloggers indulge in digital prostitution.  

By now many DMK affiliated bloggers were into this propaganda - whether paid or not is beyond doubt after knowing about this agency. This information itself is enough to vote out DMK. DMK and Karunanidhi had always been in the forefront in corrupt practices and mischief. When they got a chance to enter the cabinet in Delhi, they spread their practices there too. They have not left out the social media now.


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From


Paid News Passe, it's Now Paid Views
By 
S Deepak Karthik

“Here is an opportunity for getting paid for your blog. All you need is to copy paste the content and get paid weekly. This is a political campaign we are running where we provide facts and figures that features the existing government in Tamil Nadu.”

With the election campaign increasingly moving online to match the age of technology where a quarter of the electorate is under 30, can the dirty tricks experts be far behind? A Mumbai-based brand consultancy firm has entered the murky waters ahead of the Assembly poll in Tamil Nadu in search of digital daily-wagers who can take on the incumbent government by ‘playing around with facts and figures’.

On Wednesday, a group of about 100 bloggers, who are part of a Chennai-based online blogging community, received a group mail from Brand Monachis, a Mumbai-based company that has worked with national and regional political parties, with the subject, ‘Get paid for your blog’.

The deal was rather simple:

every morning, it will provide the content which the blogger has to post on their blog, without making any changes, and share on the social media space. “You just have to copy and paste the content we send you. In return, we will pay you about Rs 300 per day at the rate of Rs 100 per article that we provide along with data against the existing State government,” a representative of the firm told this reporter on phone after responding to the initial mail. The wages will be paid weekly, with a blogger willing to do the job standing to earn Rs 2,100 a week, it added.

The campaign was run for the DMK against the incumbent government, the person added, though Express could not independently verify the identity of the client.

The person at the other end of the line gave two contact numbers if interested in taking up the job — it included one that is the number for the Mumbai firm as given in its official webpage. When called the number feigning interest, the offer became sweeter: bring in 10 more who would be willing to do this and become a coordinator for the group. In return, this reporter was offered double the money for each post — Rs 200 per post.

Such efforts to enlist bloggers are not unusual. Firms spend money to build presence and promote brands online through bloggers who have a substantial number of captive audience and are able to mould opinion thro-ugh informal channels. But doing it for political parties is unusual, at least in Tamil Nadu. The bloggers in TN, who received the invite, said popular ones among them were earlier approached by another party strongly associated with an influential community in northern TN for a similar campaign where they would give the content to be posted on their blog space. 

“Bloggers would prefer to express their own opinions instead of being forced to reproduce the content generated by some PR agency for promoting a particular political party. We can’t do injustice to our readers,” N Katie, a noted blogger from Chennai, told Express.

“I can immediately relate this as a digital equivalent of paying voters to vote. Such initiatives will backfire since it affects the credibility of bloggers who post such pre-prepared articles on their blogs,” said Kiruba Shankar, a social media entrepreneur.

While repeated attempts to reach the leaders of DMK, for whom the campaign is allegedly being run, failed, Chief Electoral Officer Rajesh Lakhani said, “We will take action as per MCC and IPC against any violation.”

“Bloggers would prefer to express their own opinions instead of being forced to reproduce the content generated by some PR agency for promoting a particular political party. We can’t do injustice to our readers,” N Katie, a noted blogger from Chennai, told Express.


6 comments:

  1. Madam
    What is the likely outcome of the TN elections 2016?

    Surprising you have not put out any article on elections till date.

    Looking forward to some articles with predictions on the same.

    Regards
    Bala

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr Bala,

    I think you are not a resident of Tamilnadu. Here everyone knows what is going to be the outcome:)

    In a 5-cornered contest, the anti-ADMK votes are going to be split and that leaves ADMK to be in the lead in most constituencies. Even in the presence of Modi wave in 2014, JJ won in a 3 cornered contest with a clean sweep. Now the same situation prevails. Except Thirumavalavan (dalit party) no one else in the 3rd front (DMDK, MDMK, Left parties and Vasan's TMC) can make a decent vote share of even above 5% each. The one crore strong new and young voters would largely vote for JJ, the dalits among them would vote for Thiruma and those from DMK supporting families would vote for DMk. For the DMK the votes are family influenced, that is, only those born to DMK supporters from Dravidian movement days would vote for DMK as a inherited trait. No new voters are added to DMK. Other parties would get the votes of their family members and friends. That's all.

    There is no anti incumbancy against JJ. Very Very important is that JJ solved the power crisis. No one can forget the power cuts and the helplessness of DMK and MK in doing some thing about it. The women voters and youth are solidly behind JJ. TN film field would not like the come back of DMK as they know their livelihood will be gone by the DMK family.

    Despite all this, a section of Govt servants want DMK back; both print and TV media are writing all nonsense about JJ and her party while projecting DMK and MK as saviors. It is because birds of the feather flock together. The corrupt would like to join the corrupt. They can get away with their misdeeds if MK is in power. That can not happen with JJ in power. That is the reason for the hatred for JJ. But common man is with her only. It is a repeat of what I wrote in 2014 blogs and comments.

    Astrologically JJ has the dasa - bhukthi of dharma -karma lords. MK has Baadhaka dasa with Rahu (maraka bhukthi) at the time of elections. I interpret it as victory for JJ. In my forth coming article in the Astrological magazine I have compared the horoscopes of these two in the light of how to interpret Saturn- Mars conjunction in transit at the present times. It is JJ's life's mission to finish MK and the so called Dravidian mentality. BY this election all fringe parties will be wiped out. Dmk would lose. MK will be the cause for the demise of his own party. He has brought Alagiri in. After MK's demise, DMK will split between Alagiri and Stalin. That is natural justice. Kala purusha must make this happen.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Mr Bala,

    I have updated the article on Karunanidhi's horoscopic prospects in the upcoming elections in https://jayasreesaranathan.blogspot.in/2011/04/will-karunanidhi-come-back-astrological_12.html
    Presently you can see the link in the top right hand corner "From the archives' section.

    As I am finding an increased traffic to that particular article written during last elections, I have updated it for the present elections and made it the featured post. It will be there for some time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I wish JJ would come back but the SC verdict is the cliffhanger here. Most of the parties expect it to go against her.

    ReplyDelete
  5. We can see the pending SC verdict in 3 ways.

    (1) The verdict will not be given before the elections, as that is likely to influence the outcome of the results. In the last elections, the verdict on Kanimozhi was withheld till the elections were over. So there is no need to worry about the impact of the verdict on the elections.

    (2) Astrologically, I am of the firm opinion that the present dasa bhukthi of Jupiter - Saturn (dasa of the 10th lord and bhukthi of the 9th lord which means Dharma karmadhipathi dasa) would give her release from the case. One must recall that soon after this Bhukthi started, JJ was let out on bail. I will write an astrological article on various combinations of Dharma karmadhipathi dasa - bhukthi after she is released in this case. I have even thought about her past life / karma based on various factors and am of the opinion that her retributive karma is over and she is now launched on to carrying out the mission of her birth. This may be her last birth and I will at some write about how to arrive at such a conclusion.

    (3) The case against her is weak because it has not been established that she got the money from corrupt practices or as a quid pro quo for some favours done to somebody. All that the prosecution has said is that the 'amassed' money was used for marriage and renovation of her house. Ridiculous.For every other accusation, she already has proper IT papers. The case has come all these years mainly because of DMK and its influence on the power circles and judiciary.

    The political parties are wishing for her fall for, they can not survive when she is around. They are all having existential crisis. The left parties would loose the status of national party if they don't win some seats and increase their vote share in TN. Other parties like DMDK, MDMK, VCK and TMC must either get 6% vote share and 2 seats or 3% vote share and 3 seats in the coming elections to be recognized as a State party. In the absence of alliance with DMK or ADMK, this is herculean task. That is why they are wishing to see JJ to go to jail to attract her vote bank. But in my opinion, jail or bail (I think there is scope for further appeal) sympathy wave will be for her. She has the massive support of poor and women segment.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for the detailed post. Was really interesting to read about the living parasitic fossil.

    Regards
    Bala

    ReplyDelete