Tripura govt, ministers' Wiki pages wrongly tweaked; govt files complaint

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Published : Jul 28, 2021, 2:28 PM IST

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A highly-placed source in the government said these groups had a common intention to spread misinformation. BJP Spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharjee said it was a a conspiracy by the opposition CPIM. T

Agartala (Tripura): The Directorate of Information Technology, Tripura, has lodged an official complaint with Google against infringement of details pertaining to the government and its ministers. Official sources said certain fringe groups with technical background were trying to influence search engine results by manipulating Google algorithm and editing Wikipedia pages.

A highly-placed source in the government said these groups had a common intention to spread misinformation. "They want to cause confusion among the people. Several times, they have changed the details available on Wikipedia pages on Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath and Chief Minister Biplab Kumar among other ministers to control the search engine results. They also feed key words in order to push forward their agenda based search results. We have flagged the issue before Google authorities as such things are creating serious repercussions," the source said.

Also read: TMC cries foul as Prashant Kishore's I-PAC team 'confined' to hotel in Agartala

Last Friday, search results for Chief Minister Biplab Kumar on Google returned the name of Revenue Minister NC Debbarma. Earlier, a search for Kumar threw up pages of Jishnu Dev Varma and Ratan Lal Nath in return. Education Minister Ratan Lal Nath's profile also came under such attacks. “The protected official website of the Tripura government has all the data correct. Despite this, such activities have been going on for a long time. It started after the BJP-led government came to power in 2018. Google had been asked as to why such problems were reappearing," the source said.

BJP Spokesperson Nabendu Bhattacharjee said, “This is a conspiracy by the opposition CPIM. They are planning an IT crackdown. We demand the state government to take strict action against these fringe groups as they are in a sense trying to mislead people. These attempts must be foiled”.

According to Bhattacharjee, the CPIM has lost its support base and can't fight elections on ground. "Now, their strategy is to malign our leaders. But, they should understand elections are meant to be fought on ground, not from social media war rooms and teams full of trolls", he said.

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