The Congress is not liking the sudden increase in 'Likes' to Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala's Facebook posts.
Chennithala's Facebook page, of late, has been flooded with 'Likes', apparently by Vietnam-based fake profiles. The sudden interest in Chennitala’s page has made the Congress see red.
The Left Democratic Front (LDF) activists grabbed the opportunity with both hands and accused the opposition of employing bots, or software robots, to multiply the 'Likes.'
The United Democratic Front (UDF) retorted, and held the LDF responsible for the sudden interest in Chennithala's posts.
They also accused the LDF of attempting to tarnish the Opposition Leader's image for exposing the bogus votes in the electoral rolls prepared for the April 6 Assembly polls.
The bot army - created and maintained using specific software - has been swarming Chennitala’s Facebook page, clicking the ‘Like’ button in thousands.
The presence of a bot army was first felt in Kerala a month ago. Of the 321 profiles that followed the Twitter handle of the State government’s Digital Workforce Management (DWM) platform in the first five days, 95 per cent were found to be bot accounts.
A Mumbai-based public relations firm was maintaining the DWM Twitter handle. Bots are normally used to exponentially increase the number of followers of a social media account.
Bot armies have been reported widely in the country earlier.