In 2022, Indian news outlet The Wire alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) used an application, called Tek Fog, to manipulate social media.
[5] This report claimed that the Tek Fog application was used "to artificially inflate the popularity of the Bharatiya Janata Party, harass its critics and manipulate public perceptions at scale across major social media platforms" and to "amplify right-wing propaganda".
[6][7][8] The Wire investigation also claimed that the BJP, along with the private companies Persistent Systems and Mohalla Tech (which operates a service called ShareChat), were involved in deploying the app.
[12] These capabilities purportedly included being able to hijack the '"trending"' section of social media sites, Twitter and Facebook, bulk-hacking of inactive WhatsApp accounts,[13] among other functionalities.
[5][16] Tek Fog was also alleged to have managed a huge database of Indian citizens which included specific data regarding their occupation, religion, age, gender, etc., which was then used to deliver targeted insults and criticism.
[18] The Editors Guild of India, a national non-profit organisation of journalists, said that The Wire investigation "laid bare an extensive and well funded network built around [the] app".
[19] The Editors Guild condemned "the continuing online harassment of women journalists", and demanded "urgent steps to break and dismantle this misogynistic and abusive digital eco-system".
Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien of the Trinamool Congress called for a meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs to discuss the app and said it "has serious ramifications and could jeopardise national security.
[33] On 12 January, The Hindu reported that Anand Sharma wrote to the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India seeking a response on questions surrounding Tek Fog.