Decoding BJP’s Surrogate social media Pages running political Ads.
BJP and other parties use proxy/surrogate pages to maximize reach and impressions.
This is an analysis by YouTurn and NewsMeter in collaboration with International Center for Journalism IFCJ) in their ‘Disarming Disinformation Program’ initiative. For this analysis, we look into how proxy/surrogate pages act in Meta platforms, specifically in Tamil Nadu, in favour of political parties, disguising their identity that they are working and spending money for ads in favour of a particular political party.
In the past 10 years, it has become pertinent for the election campaign of political parties to take place in online/virtual forums as much as it is important on the ground with people. Campaigning online in social media is emerging as a separate discipline on its own. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the pioneer in using social media as a propaganda tool in India to boost up his image among the people. In fact, this idea to do an ‘image building’ in social media gave him an edge over not just the then ruling Congress and UPA Government, but also over L.K.Advani, a senior leader in BJP who was initially touted to be the Prime Ministerial candidate from the party.
Since then, many from various parties have tried to replicate the formula but none has come close to the level of Modi’s image and reach of his party, the BJP, in social media let alone beating him. Apart from using social media to boost up one’s image, it is now being increasingly used to tarnish the image of others, especially the leaders from the opposition camp. It has been more evident in 2024 than in any of the previous General or Legislative Assembly elections. Many strategies and set ploys are used for this purpose with extensive spending, planning and co-ordination. For eg. BJP successfully coined the term ‘Pappu’ for their main rival, Rahul Gandhi which is intended to mean that Rahul is dull or not an intelligent enough person. This worked in the previous years but for 2024, BJP went above and beyond that.
For doing this, the party did not use their official social media handles. They have allegedly used many pages that spread their messages but with a neutral identity which does not bear any association with the party. One of the main reasons to do it in such a way is the believability factor and reach it generates among the general public which usually discards or does not take into much consideration for the ads/posts from a political party. Even if a fair accusation is made by a political party against another, it is usually shunned by the public assuming it to be ‘partisan rhetoric’. On the other hand, even a false accusation with a neutral identity against a political party tends to stick. So, many pages with neutral identities are approached or opened for campaigning for political parties.
Even if there are falsehoods and hate speech from these pages, it does not impact the political parties concerned and also does not come under the lens of the Election Commission. So the parties dare to continue further in that fashion. Several crores are spent on pages like this on ads which are displayed throughout the country. Many pages are created with region specific goals and targets which focus only on that region. Despite many pages appearing to act independently, the funding seems to have come from a single source.
First, we listed out the top spenders for the first 3 months of the year i.e. from the beginning of January till end of March in Meta in terms of spending for ads in their platforms. Several non-political parties made the list which was topped by Way2News which also included DIPR TN, MyGovIndia etc. Among political parties, BJP emerged as the overall second most spender in the list which also included pages that worked for political parties.
General Elections for 2024 was announced on 16th March and it was conducted in 7 phases starting from April 19 and ending on 1st June. All the 39 constituencies in Tamil Nadu voted on the first phase of elections on April 19th itself. So, we also looked at the top spenders for the month of April in Tamil Nadu. ‘Ellorum Nammudan’, a page supporting the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) came out as the top spenders in that list, followed by BJP in second position and ‘Tamilakam’ a page that is supposedly supporting the BJP came third. It is important to note that the proxy/surrogate pages that work for political parties outspent the political parties themselves.
Methodology:
- In the Meta Ads Library page, we chose the filter “Issues, elections or politics” and entered the page name that we wanted to search. For eg. MemeXpress.
- In the search results that appear on the next page, we filtered out the region as Tamil Nadu.
- In the same page, we also filtered the dates from January 1 to June 15, 2024.
- We compiled the results manually along with its reach, amount spent, its political bias etc.
- We took the lowest figures in the amount spent and impressions columns for uniformity.
- We wrote a summary for each page based on the results.
MemeXpress
MemeXpress was started on December 2023 and it has just over 2,000 likes and around 3,000 followers. Its main modus operandi is to create memes which are in support of the BJP and/or against the parties opposed to the BJP, i.e.the parties from the INDIA alliance. The memes were pushed to the people using paid promotions for maximum reach and impact. It mainly focuses on Facebook and Instagram. MemeXpress has created another page, Meme Hub, which also does the same work. Both the pages initially had the same name and logo but later the latter page was renamed as ‘Meme Hub’ with a similar looking logo.
Since 1st January 2024 to 15th June 2024, MemeXpress spent a total of Rs.57.14 lakhs in ads in Tamil Nadu as per the results from Meta Ads Library. The number rose up to Rs.1.62 crores when we removed the region filter for the same dates. These ads received at least 37.27 crore impressions in Meta platforms. The impressions stood at 10 crores when we filtered it for Tamil Nadu region. MemeXpress also spent Rs.72 lakhs on ads for the posts on the ‘Meme Hub’ page.
An important thing to note here is the amount spent by Ulta Chashma, another page in Facebook, for the ads in MemeXpress page. It spent a total of Rs.42 lakhs for MemeXpress and the amount was Rs.12.5 lakhs when checked under Tamil Nadu region filter. There has been no spending since the end of April and March saw a huge spike in overall spending.
These ads were primarily targeted against the DMK, AAP and other parties from the opposition alliance ‘INDIA’. Many of these ads are now removed and thus we were not able to manually verify them all but we are able to make the assessment that the deleted posts too were in favor of the BJP and against the opposition parties. In our assessment with NewsMeter, we were able to find out that almost 44% if the ads were against Congress, 35% against Congress and 28% of these posts were against opposition parties from INDIA alliance.
Memes against Congress:
Sample 1:
A video from the famous ‘Tom & Jerry’ animated cartoon show is used to portray that people burst out laughing after reading Congress’ manifesto.
Sample 2:
It shows Congress Leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Sonia Gandhi are discussing what to say after losing the elections. Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi is portrayed as planning for his next vacation.
Memes against DMK:
Sample 1:
A meme showing a bus going on a hilly road. One side the children of the DMK are seated with a good view of the valley and on the other side, kids of the ordinary Tamils are seated which are facing the rocks in the mountain.
Sample 2:
A sunrise and a sunset are shown with a portrayal that DMK is going down in Tamil Nadu and the BJP is ascending to the top.
Tamil Nadu and West Bengal:
Tamil Nadu and West Bengal are the two states which the BJP would love to make inroads and a lot of attention is given by the BJP as both are currently ruled by DMK and AITMC respectively. Both states blame the BJP and Union Government and both make anti-BJP their primary political rhetoric. For both these states, almost a similar video is used by MemeXpress.
In Tamil Nadu’s version, it is shown that PM Modi had gifted Tamil Nadu with Metro Rail, an International Airport and Vande Bharat trains etc. Meanwhile, DMK and CM M.K.Stalin has given the state poor roads, garbage dumps, inundated roads and floods etc. Similarly, it is portrayed that CM Mamata Baanerjee has only given the state violence.
Fake News and Hate Speech:
PM Modi and the BJP had made several false allegations that the Congress would take away the OBC, SC, ST reservation and give it to the Muslims. Modi and the BJP even claimed that the Congress’ manifesto appears to be that of the ‘Muslim League’s Manifesto’. Many in the right wing have been claiming that more promises were made for the Muslims than Hindus in Congress’ manifesto. These are not just falsehoods but also double up as hate speech with a clear intention to incite hatred among the people. A meme was made replicating this false narrative.
Political X-Ray
The page, Political X-Ray, was created in December 2023 and has been posting memes about Politics and promoting those ads through paid promotions in Meta, just like MemeXpress. Many of the ads/posts posted by Political X-Ray has been removed by Meta as it did not follow Meta’s guidelines for posting ads. The page has a meagre 7,000 likes and 9,000 followers but has spent Rs.1.64 crores for ads just on Meta since 1st January. In this, almost Rs.35 lakhs was paid by Ulta Chashma. This page has posted ads on various languages and had made them visible throughout the country, not just Tamil Nadu. With region filter set to Tamil Nadu, we found that Political X-Ray spent Rs.59 lakhs and out of this, Ulta Chashma contributed Rs.18.7 lakhs. These ads received at least 13.71 crore impressions, and this is just under the Tamil Nadu region filter and without it, it reached more than 39.44 crore impressions.
When YouTurn and NewsMeter sorted out the ads from January 1st to April 30th, we found out that 59% of the ads were against Congress and 15.86% ads were against DMK. Posts against the alliance ‘INDIA’ stood at 17.24% and plain pro-BJP posts formed another 7%.
Memes against Congress:
Sample 1:
A meme showing Rahul Gandhi thinking that he wants to break India while pretending to be uniting India under his Bharat Jodo Yatra. Meanwhile, a tube when pressed shows Suresh, a Congress leader, showing a placard stating that he wants to divide South India from North India.
Sample 2:
An animated video showing Rahul Gandhi allowing Muslims to board on the boat called ‘Reservation’ which already has OBC, SC, ST people in them. The video shows, after a while, Muslims dumping the OBC, SC and ST people in the water in the middle of the ocean but PM Modi comes in another boat and rescues them. This video was also shared by L.Murugan, former TN BJP’s leader and Union Minister of State in the previous and current Union Government.
Memes against DMK:
Sample 1:
A cartoon showing TN CM M.K.Stalin blocking TV Channels from telecasting the consecration of Ram Temple in Tamil Nadu in the Direct-to-Home (DTH) connections but people of Tamil Nadu are watching the consecration in Direct-to-Heart connection. But there was no such ban in Tamil Nadu and it is just a right-wing falsehood.
Sample 2:
A cartoon shows DMK and Congress are blocking the Cauvery (Kaveri) river water with Mekadatu Dam while Tamils are asking for water.
Sample 3:
A cartoon image showing Congress in Karnataka closing the water tap to Tamil Nadu and Tamils are struggling for Water. Meanwhile, it shows CM M.K.Stalin is asking Congress in Tamil Nadu to take as many seats (parliamentary seats) in Tamil Nadu.
Tamilakam – தமிழகம்
Tamilakam – தமிழகம் was a state specific page that was started only on February 2024 with sole purpose of working for Tamil Nadu election and the last post was made on 19 April 2024. It is to be noted that the elections in Tamil Nadu took place on 19th April. The ads posted by the page costed at least Rs.77 lakhs. Out of this, Rs.15.27 lakhs was spent by Ulta Chashma. These ads received at least 20 crore impressions mostly in Tamil Nadu alone. If we take the numbers using a different metric in Meta Ads Library, the number goes up to Rs.83 lakhs.
Ads Against DMK:
Sample 1:
DMK is branded as a Chinese agent by a post which was promoted with Rs.1.25 lakhs and even videos about this was also promoted by Tamilakam Page. An advertisement by Anitha Radhakrishnan, a DMK leader and a Cabinet Minister in Tamil Nadu Government, gave a newspaper advertisement congratulating his leader for the ISRO’s launch pad in Thoothukudi which featured a Chinese flag. This was later clarified to be a mix-up by the newspaper ad’s designer.
Sample 2:
DMK Leader and Tamil Nadu CM Stalin is branded as a Drug Mafia member and it was said that DMK stood for Drug Marketing Kazhagam.
Sample 3:
A misinformation regarding the number of Haj pilgrims from Tamil Nadu and Gujarat is quoted with an insidious intent to incite communal hatred among the communities.
Spelling Mistakes:
The videos have glaring issues with the language and the spelling seems to have gone for a toss in a video which was promoted with Rs.1.91 lakh.
Same video in other States:
A template used by the page ‘Tamilakam’ in Tamil Nadu is re-used by many other pages in their respective states with other pages such as Kannada Sangamam, Malabar Central etc.
Ulta Chashma
‘Ulta Chashma’ is a page that was started on November 2023. The page has just 7 thousand followers but has spent a lot of money on its own pages and for other pages as well. Here are the list of pages that received money from Ulta Chashma: Amaar Sonar Bangla, Political X-Ray, MemeXpress, Tamilakam, Kannada Sangamam, Aamcha Maharashtra, Sidha Chashama, Telangana Central, Malabar Central, Sonar Bangla, Siyasat Di Baat.
Here’s the amount spent by Ulta Chashma on other pages since it started:
Since the beginning of 2024, Ulta Chashma has spent at least Rs.1.70 crores in Meta for ads for its own page. With Tamil Nadu region filter, the amount stands at Rs.73 lakhs. The page had an impression of over 33 crores. However, since the beginning of March, there were no ads posted on Ulta Chashma’s page as it had many other pages that it was giving ads on. To get a rough idea on the scale in which Ulta Chashma operated in the last 90 days, here’s how much it spent on these following pages:
From January to April, 38.46% of the ads were against the opposition alliance INDIA, 34.62% were against Congress alone. Anti-DMK and Anti-Farmers ads received 6% each.
Sample 1:
A misinformation video showing Rahul Gandhi in which he allegedly promised that potatoes will be converted into gold. Despite this being a debunked misinformation, it was promoted as an ad.
Sample 2:
A video of Tamil Nadu BJP President Annamalai claiming that many ministers in Tamil Nadu Government’s cabinet did not even complete school level education.
Sample 3:
A misinformation video of DMK MP T.R.Baalu is shown in which he allegedly boasted that he demolished several 100-year old Hindu temples in Tamil Nadu when he was a Union Minister.
Sample 4 (Kannada Sangamam):
A meme showing Rahul Gandhi allegedly saying that post the General Elections, only he would remain in the Congress party. Similar post was posted in Tamilakam page as well and it too was promoted.
Sample 5 (Amaar Sonar Bangla):
A meme showing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee is hiding terrorists behind her back.
Ellorum Nammudan
‘Ellorum Nammudan’ is a DMK support page which was created in 2021 and has been around for quite some time. The page has shared the DMK’s campaign song “Stalinin Kural”, several policies and ideas of the party and has worked to take them to the public. The page has been operated and funded by ‘Populus Empowerment Network Private Limited’ (PEN) which is closely linked to the party and there are even reports that the organization belongs to Sabareesan, the son-in-law of Chief Minister M.K.Stalin. PEN has been tasked with the party’s social media campaigns and the party’s efforts in all virtual forums. While DMK has used this page ‘Ellorum Nammudan’ extensively, it has used its official DMK page very sporadically and its ad spending is almost non-existent during this election cycle. Since January 2024, the PEN has spent Rs.2.17 crores which received at least 17.8 crore impressions. The DMK has directly spent at least Rs.5 lakhs in this page in the said period. In addition to this, another page ‘Stalinin Kural’ spent around Rs.55.93 lakhs which was also paid for by Populus Empowerment Network Private Limited. There is a third page, ‘Makkalin Mudhalvar’, which relatively received less funds and attention.
We spoke to Vijay who is in charge of PEN’s social media promotions said that this is done mainly to avoid issues that arises with Meta’s ‘Disclaimers’, sponsors for the posts as per Meta’s nomenclature. Disclaimers are a mandatory disclosure when a political ad is created in Meta platforms and are made visible in each post to educate the users about who has paid for the advertisement. He also added that they have many disclaimers which can be used if there is a problem with one and added that people are very much aware of the fact that pages like “Ellorum Nammudan” and “Stalinin Kural” are DMK’s own pages.
No connection to BJP:
We also spoke to Kiran Nath from Concept Communications, a company that has been doing the social media campaigns for BJP’s candidate for Thiruvananthapuram Parliamentary Constituency, Rajeev Chandrasekhar. He said that they have opened many pages to run ads for Rajeev Chandrashekar and they bear no connection either to BJP or to Rajeev. Kiran’s crew believe that the posts from surrogate pages with neutral identity reaches more people than otherwise. Kiran also pointed out that the party and the candidates need to disclose only their official page to the Election Commission of India (ECI) and there is no such mandate for all other pages which may run a proxy campaign for the parties and the candidates. Pages like Change4TVM and TVM Talks were the top political spenders in the state during the election cycle.
Free and Fair Elections?
Before the elections, several civil society organizations wrote to the Election Commission of India (ECI) demanding that ECI must ensure a ‘free and fair’ election which raised the concern regarding the usage of surrogate pages. It also highlighted several shortcomings of the Voluntary Code of Ethics which is effective from March 20, 2019. In addition to this, 87 ex-civil servants too wrote to the ECI for a free and fair election. There has to be a significant revamp in the ECI guidelines regarding ads and campaigns done in social media platforms and better disclosure features need to be adopted by the social media companies. When asked to comment, Meta came up with a standard response which said that they take appropriate action if there are violations in advertisements. They also mentioned that they regularly act against advertisers who make do not follow Meta’s guidelines on disclaimers, disclosure on political ads. The e-mail response further stated that individuals or entities intending to publish advertisements concerning elections or politics are required to adhere to Meta’s approval process and abide by all local laws and regulations. A significant revamp needs to be done across the board when it comes to campaign spending in online forums and the laws surrounding it.
