Mr Kumar,
Information warfare is an ever-changing and, at the present undefined field that is attracting increasing attention from the defense industry and policymakers. The reason for both the fascination and lack of clarity in this field is the so-called “information revolution” triggered by the rapid development of microcomputers, cyberspace and related information technologies.
Cyberspace can be used as a force multiplier of information warfare activities and social media is a powerful tool for communicating a narrative and generating confusion within a target audience. The explosion of online social networks has revolutionized the distribution and consumption of information, which is creating new media hierarchy. Consequently, the environment is primed for exploitation by malicious actors.
Unfortunately, three of the most powerful emotions – fear, uncertainty and anger are the factors that increase the likelihood a message will go viral. Even if the disinformation is first seen on sites that aren’t part of mainstream media, a mass coordinated action on different digital platforms which can help to ensure greater audience penetration. Bot networks that are comprised of fake profiles, increase the impact of the message and create an appearance of increased engagement and popularity across many platforms simultaneously.
The modern form of disinformation is different from propaganda. It is not founded on ideology or factual information. The purpose of modern digital disinformation is not to convince the public by delivering a single message. Instead, it is designed to confuse people by presenting various messages. It could be nearly everything, and that is why it is so much more dangerous than propaganda.
Nowadays, states and non-state actors can spread false information quickly and with the potential for serious consequences. According to the research by Robinson Meyer, on average, a fake story is read by 1500 people, which is six times faster than a true report. This is the case with fake stories on any subject; however, stories about politics are most likely to be viral.
A number of states, in pursuit of their geopolitical goals using the internet and social media networks to disseminate narratives, distortions and lies to influence opinions of the general public and undermine confidence on the facts. Pakistan is continuously targeted by Indian disinformation. Disinformation used by India as a mean of spreading the propaganda against Pakistan is well documented and there is strong evidence of coordinated attacks by Indian troll armies on almost all digital platforms in the past.
India has a significant and influential segment of people who are strongly nationalist and this has led to the rise of propaganda-driven trolls. The ruling political party BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is known for using exclusive troll disinformation to suppress and control the actions of any opponents both within and outside of the country. The recent findings of Facebook documents revealed the shocking situation even within India, the company’s biggest market. It shows a struggle with misinformation, hate speech and celebrations of violence in the country. On February 4, 2019, a Facebook researcher created a new user account to find out how it felt to use the social media platform as a resident of Kerala, India. In the coming three weeks, the Facebook account was operated according to a single rule: follow all suggestions made by Facebook’s algorithm. The result was an overflow of hate-filled posts, false information as well as celebrations for violence.
Another example is when Indian propaganda, both private and state-sponsored, has attacked British Politician Jeremy Corbyn, who served as leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition from 2015 to 2020 after he criticized Indian handling of Kashmir in 2019. He tweeted on August 11, 2019 that “The situation in Kashmir is deeply disturbing. Human rights abuses taking place are unacceptable. The rights of the Kashmiri people must be respected and UN resolutions implemented”. The trolling from several Indian accounts involved a carefully orchestrated pattern of rebuke peculiar to the nature of the troll industry.
The last couple of years have shown an increase in the Indian disinformation campaigns, particularly against Pakistan and there are a number of prominent examples available to be discussed here. After a preliminary investigation released in 2019 by the EU Disinfo Lab, a European News Watchdog uncovered a massive operation targeting international institutions and serving Indian interests in December 2020. The network of fake news websites was used to target policymakers in the United States and the European Union to act against Pakistan. The aim of those websites is to spread propaganda and influence public perception of Pakistan. The report describes the disinformation campaign launched from India as “15 years’ huge operation running since 2005, targeting international institutions and serving Indian interest – using resurrected media, dead think tanks and NGOs. Even dead people were resurrected.” This report also revealed that 750+ fake media outlets and 550+ domains were found covering 119 countries.
There is very strong evidence of coordinated digital attacks against Pakistan by India Troll Armies. Previously, Indian Twitter accounts circulated claims in October 2020 that there was a civil war in Karachi (Pakistan). Multiple Indian news websites also reported the story, despite the fact that there was no truth to this claim. The hashtag #CivilWarInPakistan was used by the Indian trolls and promoted fake news, which was widely circulated on Indian websites and social media. Major media outlets in India, including Zee News, CNN18, and India Today picked unverified tweets and videos. However, the credibility of Indian media was seriously damaged when BBC reported that videos and reports by Indian media about the civil war in Pakistan were fake.
Similarly, the same hashtag #CivilWarInPakistan was again used by Indian trolls during a protest by a Pakistani religious political party TLP (Tehreek e Labbaik), who were demanding the end of diplomatic relations with France due to an incident of blasphemy in France. Once again, many prominent Indian personalities and trolls posted fake and doctored images and videos of mob violence within Pakistan. They also shared doctored videos of soldiers from Pakistan claiming to join the violent protestors. This was a clear interference by India into Pakistan’s internal security affairs. The hashtag analysis revealed that almost 61% of tweets were coming from India on this hashtag #CivilWarInPakistan and New Delhi contributed the highest number of tweets by generating 10% of the total volume of tweets.
Recently, it has been observed that the Taliban’s quick rise to the top in Afghanistan and the weak resistance they faced in the Panjshir Valley resulted in disinformation, particularly against Pakistan. Indian media had tried their level best to propagate unverified claims about the involvement of the Pakistan Army in Panjsher, Afghanistan. Indian trolls shared a photo of an exploded F-16 aircraft and claimed it was a PAF jet that was shot down in the Panjshir valley by the anti-Taliban forces. However, it was found to be a photo from the past of the US aircraft, taken in the year 2018. Later, the French television channel exposed Indian media’s false information about the Pakistani Air Force (PAF) conducting an offensive in Afghanistan’s Panjshir region.
A recent trend on Twitter “#SanctionPakistan” has been proven to be fake according to Twitter’s terms and conditions where more than 480 K tweets were present on 11 August 2021. As per the analysis, about 53 thousand Twitter accounts participated in the trend, out of which approximately 13 thousand accounts were created within 5 days after the trend started and 25 thousand of those accounts were created within a month prior to the hashtag #SanctionPakistan started to trend and majority of the tweets with this hashtag were posted from these accounts. “SanctionPakistan” is a disinformation campaign and propagated mainly by Indian netizens along with Afghani and Pakistani anti-government/state user accounts using inorganic network. Social media accounts operated from India and Afghanistan were active to blame Pakistan for Afghanistan’s failures.
It was also a shaming experience for an Indian retired General Bakshi to discover that the images that he had presented as proof of the Pakistan Army’s role in Afghanistan were actually those that were taken by Pakistani actor from the film Yalghar. The same was true regarding an Indian anchor Goswami on the presence of ISI officers on the 5th floor of the Serena Hotel situated in Kabul was a source of ridicule when an abundance of tweets to reveal the fact that Serena has just two floors.
The use of deception in Indian media outlets is a long-standing strategy used to “Balkanise” Pakistan. Recently, Indian investments in Afghanistan before the Taliban were similar to their assistance for the Bengalis in former East Pakistan. In the last couple of years, evidence has emerged linking coordinated efforts of state-sponsored actors to influence public opinion typically during any major political events via “trolls”. The increased frequency and intensity of cyber-enabled information operations directed at Pakistan calls for a deeper examination of theories and strategies to protect against, restraining and minimizing the impact of influence and manipulation psychologically.
