On November 11, Bharatiya Janata Party’s leader Devang Dave demanded an apology from The Wire for accusing him of being the brains behind the imaginary app ‘Tek Fog’. In a tweet, he wrote, “The way The Wire the liars accused me of manufacturing and running so-called #TekFog app. They should publicly apologise and make it cover in all national & international Media like they did it for the fake story. Rest Law will take care of all of this.”
The way @thewire_in the liars accused me of manufacturing and running so called #TekFog app
— Devang Dave (@DevangVDave) November 11, 2022
They should publicly apologise and make it cover in all national & international Media like they did it for the fake story
Rest Law will take care of all of this https://t.co/KCo22PBwCU
It is not yet clear whether he is taking any legal step against The Wire for tarnishing his image with regards to Tek Fog.
The Wire’s accusations against Dave
Relying on an April 2020 tweet and some ‘source’, The Wire had claimed that the BJP was using one software named Tek Fog, led by BJP leader Devang Dave, that had unprecedented powers to manipulate online trends and churn out hate to attack its detractors. Dave, in an email response to The Wire, before publishing Tek Fog report, had categorically denied his involvement in any such ‘hate app’. However, The Wire’s hitjob not only made ridiculous assertions on the app which clearly does not exist, but even insinuated that Dave was indeed the brains behind it.
In the report published in January 2022, Wire claimed that the so-called Tek Fog app allowed BJP to ‘hijack’ the Twitter trends, allowed managing multiple WhatsApp accounts and direct online harassment of anti-BJP journalists. The report claimed that the app could bypass all kinds of security features that major social media platforms have. According to The Wire, Tek Fog had some kind of superpower that granted it capabilities that even the NSA of the USA did not have. The Wire alleged that hacking top apps like Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp etc, child’s play using Tek Fog, and all security features of those platforms vanish with this magical piece of software.
However, within days, OpIndia punctured holes in The Wire’s report on Tek Fog, highlighting how the leftist propaganda website’s claims on a superpower app did not add up and how the app may be a figment of their fecund imagination. The entire rebuttal can be read here. But it took a span of 10 months and the Meta fiasco that led The Wire, too, withdraw its Tek Fog stories too, pending an “internal inquiry”. Incidentally, Devesh Kumar, The Wire staffer who co-authored Meta stories, had also co-authored the Tek Fog stories.
The Wire retracted ‘Tek Fog’ story after ‘Meta Vs The Wire’ saga fell apart
On October 23, left-leaning propaganda portal The Wire retracted Tek Fog stories after its accusations against Meta fell apart. The Wire had accused Amit Malviya, IT Cell Chief of BJP, of taking down the Instagram post(s) using his XCheck privileges. However, the story did not hold its ground and was proven to be false by experts. The Wire had to retract all the stories related to ‘Meta Vs The Wire‘ after it turned out that the stories were based on fabricated documents.
As one of their “experts”, identified as Devesh Kumar, who worked on the technical aspects of Meta, had worked extensively on ‘Tek Fog’ stories along with Ayushman Kaul, red flags were raised against the authenticity of ‘Tek Fog’ stories. The Wire pulled down the main stories first, followed by the spin-offs, including the report where they claimed the app was used to target Alt News’ co-founder Mohammed Zubair.
