Mumbai Police cracks ‘Bots’, wants to cease cyberbullying
A few weeks back we had heard that the police had taken custody of an individual who ran an organization that allocated fake social media followers for money. The idea behind this is that many celebrities and other artists need to increase their social media followers in order to attract not only more fans but also hefty endorsements.
In unearthing more information regarding this, the police found out that rapper and singer Badshah has allegedly been associated with buying artificial followers which are run by fake accounts or ‘Bots’. The musician has been accused to do so to increase views to his songs on streaming platforms like YouTube. Word is that he wanted to break certain records which are currently held by a competing music label which is at the top currently.
Badshah was summoned by the police for questioning and accommodated the authorities completely. Badshah denied all accusations and stated that he has never been associated with this kind of practice.
While the police are yet to conclude this investigation, there are other names also involved in similar issues. The data individual caught by the police recently indicates that he had over 170 popular actors across India and some overseas who had employed his services. The names also included ones of international superstar actresses like Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. In fact, Tony Kakkar who is also an established name in the music industry was also involved in this.
But the question here is that do these fake bots serve only the purpose of following certain people? Or has it become a Frankenstein-Esque monster that is destroying things around? The current scenario leans towards the second option. The hatred that comes through such accounts, the trolls that ensue are spreading nothing but negativity around. A practice like this leads to many cases of cyberbullying that we have seen come up quite a bit in the last few months.
The police are currently investigating further on this and will charge people responsible for fake peddling harmful messages like this in society.