RICK REA: Helping You Grow Through Online Marketing
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Social Media News
    • SEO Marketing News
    • Digital Trends News
    • Photography News
    • Mobile Marketing
    • Business News
    • Gadget News
    • Printing News
  • Contact
  • About
  • Subscribe


Manipulating an Indian politicians tweets is worryingly easy to do

2/13/2019

0 Comments

 


Manipulating an Indian politician’s tweets is worryingly easy to do

https://tcrn.ch/2SRiMgo

Here’s a concerning story from India, where the upcoming election is putting the use of social media in the spotlight.

While the Indian government is putting Facebook, Google and other companies under pressure to prevent their digital platforms from being used for election manipulation, a journalist has demonstrated just how easy it is to control the social media messages that published by government ministers.

Pon Radhakrishnan, India’s minister of state for finance and shipping, published a series of puzzling tweets today after Pratik Sinha, a co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News, accessed a Google document of prepared statements and tinkered with the content.

Among the statements tweeted out, Radhakrishnan said Prime Minister Modi’s government had failed the middle classes and not made development on improving the country’s general welfare. Sinha’s edits also led to the official BJP Assam Pradesh account proclaiming that the Prime Minister had destroyed all villages and made women slaves to cooking.

And then you can get a Union Minister to tweet that "working for the middle class is low on the agenda of Modi Govt"

CC @PonnaarrBJP

2/n pic.twitter.com/79WH2r73C5

— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) February 13, 2019

These are the opposite of the partisan messages that the accounts intended to send.

The messages were held in an unlocked Google document that contained a range of tweets compiled for the Twitter accounts. Sinha managed to access the document and doctor the messages into improbable statements — which he has done before — in order to show the shocking lack of security and processes behind the social media content.

How do you get a Union Minister to tweet what you want? Well, you go and edit the trending document made by BJP IT cell, and then you control what they tweet. Thread.

Here's the video of this morning when their trending document got automagically updated :-)

1/n pic.twitter.com/6DLwDPg2CV

— Pratik Sinha (@free_thinker) February 13, 2019

Sinha said he made the edits “to demonstrate how dangerous this is from the security standpoint for this country.”

“I had fun but it could have disastrous consequences,” he told TechCrunch in a phone interview. “This is a massive security issue from the point of view of a democracy.”

Sinha said he was able to access the document — which was not restricted or locked to prevent changes — through a WhatsApp group that is run by members of the party. Declining to give specifics, he said he had managed to infiltrate the group and thus gain access to a flow of party and government information and, even more surprisingly, get right into the documents and edit them.

What’s equally as stunning is that, even with the message twisted 180 degrees, their content didn’t raise an alarm. The tweets were still loaded and published without any realization. It was only after Sinha went public with the results that Radhakrishnan and BJP Assam Pradesh account begin to delete them.

The Indian government is rightly grilling Facebook and Google to prevent its platform being abused around the election, as evidence suggested happened in the U.S. Presidential election and the U.K’s Brexit vote, but members of the government themselves should reflect on the security of their own systems, too. It would be too easy for these poor systems to be exploited.





Social Media

via Twitter – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com

February 13, 2019 at 06:11AM

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


    Amazing WeightLoss

    Click Here!

    Categories

    All
    Analyze Top Competitors
    Anti-Abuse
    Apple
    Apple Watch
    Blog Posts
    Brainstorm
    Brand Awareness
    Communications
    Content Marketing
    Conversion Rates
    Editorial Calendar Tips
    Engagement
    Facebook
    Google Analytics
    How To Marketing Tips
    Influencer
    Instagram
    Instagram Live
    Keyword Search
    Marketing
    Marketing Automation
    Picture Quotes
    Podcasts
    Recording Videos
    Repurpose Blogs
    Research Trends
    Sales Funnel
    SEO Marketing
    Sharing Posts
    Slide Shows
    Smartwatch
    Social Media Marketing
    Social Media News
    Social Media Tools
    Social Selling
    Target Marketing
    Twitter
    Twitter Notifications
    User Interaction
    Video
    Video Marketing

    Archives

    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Social Media News
    • SEO Marketing News
    • Digital Trends News
    • Photography News
    • Mobile Marketing
    • Business News
    • Gadget News
    • Printing News
  • Contact
  • About
  • Subscribe