After the leftist propaganda portal The Wire was forced to take down their Meta reports with their false claim that BJP leaders have unlimited powers to manipulate content on Instagram, they were also forced to withdraw their earlier fake stories about the fictitious app Tek Fog, written by the same ‘tech expert’. The Wire in its reports in January this year claimed that BJP has an app with the name Tek Fog which has super powers on social media, giving the party power to manipulate any social media platforms.
The Wire story about Tek Fog had reached the parliament, the Supreme Court, and international media and publications. It was cited as an example of ‘attack on freedom of expression’ by the Modi government in numerous reports published by left-liberal organisations and think tanks. Now, after The Wire withdrew their story, some of them have removed reference to Tek Fog from their reports. But some continue to carry this false information.
In fact, an organisation under the US government has mentioned this fake claim in a report published a month after The Wire took down the Tek Fog reports. On November 22, The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) published a report on Religious Freedom Conditions in India. They claimed in the report that religious freedom conditions in India remained poor in the year 2022. It says that the report provides a broad overview of religious freedom conditions in India in 2021 and 2022.
USCIRF today released a new report which provides an overview of religious freedom conditions in #India in 2021 and 2022. https://t.co/fcBPx5sc4A
— USCIRF (@USCIRF) November 22, 2022
In the 6-page report, USCIRF mentioned the Tek Fog allegation as an example of lack of religious freedom in India. The report said, “The BJP has also been accused of using ‘Tek Fog,’ a highly sophisticated app utilized by online operatives to hijack major social media and encrypted messaging platforms to amplify hate speech and exacerbate sectarian divides.”
The Wire took down the Tek Fog story on October 23, the same day the Meta story was withdrawn. Therefore, the story was withdrawn a full month before the publication of the USCIRF report, which was published on 22nd November. But it still carried the Tek Fog fake claim.
Apart from this, the report contains the usual lies that are being repeatedly used by left-liberals to make false allegations against India under the Modi government. The report alleges that the “laws targeting religious conversion, interfaith relationships, and cow slaughter negatively affect Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Dalits, and Adivasis”. It also falsely claims that CAA is against the Muslims in the country which is completely inaccurate, as the law is only applicable for foreigners and not Indian citizens. And it finds fault in the law for not including Muslim groups like Rohingya Muslims, Ahmadiyya Muslims etc.
The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is a federal government agency created by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), 1998. In July this year, the Indian government had condemned the organisation with strong words after they made similar claims against India in their 2022 annual report.
“Regrettably, USCIRF continues to misrepresent facts time and again in its statements and reports in pursuance of its motivated agenda. Such actions only serve to strengthen concerns about the credibility and objectivity of the organization,” a statement issued by MEA had said. In the 2022 annual report, USCIRF had recommended that the US administration should classify India as a “country of particular concern”, along with other countries like Pakistan, North Korea, China and Saudi Arabia.
After the Wire took down the Tek Fog story, several organisations and media houses including the Editors Guild of India, Freedom House, Bloomberg, etc had removed references to the fake app from their reports or had withdrawn their reports.
