Social Activists Amitabh Thakur, who is also an IPS officer lodged a report against IT companies regarding criminal misuse of Social Media as illustrated in the sting operation of Cobrapost.
In his FIR lodged with the Gomatinagar police station here on Friday, Amitabh Thakur claimed that many IT companies are making huge criminal and improper use of social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube etc to sway the minds of common people and electors and hence to cheat them. Just for a few thousand to few lakh rupees, these companies create fake profiles, false likes by non-existent persons, fan-following, negative comments for opponents etc.
The IPS officer further alleged that for this they use proxy codes on their computers, offshore IPs and servers to avoid tracing of the source, hack into the computers of other individuals and use Internet-based messaging system to circumvent TRAI. He claimed that these acts constitute criminal offence under IPC, IT Act 2000 and Representation of People’s Act 1951. Hence, FIR has been registered under sections 419, 420 and 465 IPC, 66A of IT Act and 125 RP Act. The case has been handed over to sub-inspector Santosh Kumar Singh for investigation.