TLP Protests – Tracing Indian Disinfo Campaign Pattern:

The embeddedness of propaganda through fake news & disinformation is normalized in Pak. Having a cursory look over the recent events, it's essential to probe to detect links to connect dots to prevent its amplification.

Garry Kasparov, Russian chess grandmaster, and political activist opine:
“The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” Considering this let’s connect the dots.

Pakistan was gripped by a series of demonstrations from TLP. GOP took steps to avoid confrontation and safeguard the lives of its citizens. During the protests, Twitter and Whatsapp groups from India were active in spreading disinformation on Pakistani social media.

This was done by disseminating content that is falsely depicted from its actual context for subversive means. Twitter trends such as # civilwarinpak and # tlpinpak got viral. Old videos, images, and textual material with no link to recent protests were disseminated.

For instance, this Twitter handle is a troll ID with 60K followers. Content uploaded from this handle stayed unverified and was from the protests 2 years back. Propagation of narrative by this handle that police joined TLP against govt was an effort to incite public.

Besides, videos of people in the uniform of the Pakistan military have been posted with messages to provoke the general public on religious grounds. The effort was to create a rift between the public and the Pakistan army.

Gullible internet users fall prey to such content by reacting emotionally and sharing content without any verification. Another handle with 90k following disseminated fake news under the guise of the civil war hashtag. Bio depicts that this handle is operated from India.

Protests occur globally and often go violent. This is a reflection of a democratic culture where groups from any political compass can demonstrate their street power. No one used this false premise of civil war for BLM protests or Delhi farmer protests.

Indian IDs and troll networks deliberately tried to create chaotic confusion in Pakistani social media. Their target was to dominate social media discourse in Pakistan to induce fear and hopelessness among the masses.

Twitter trend civil war in Pakistan was made by an Indian ID Gif_baaz.
Pakistani platforms sublimely became part of the propaganda.
The student group of Lahore’s biggest varsity also used the same hashtag.

There are countless other examples of uninformed Pakistani netizens becoming prey to disinformation.

Not just that, unverifiable news by prominent Indian outlets such as Hindustan Times claimed that France has pulled out 15 diplomats from Pakistan.

News that hasn’t made any headline on any other new platform was being ‘discussed’ in Indian media.

Another example of fake news is the following tweet that claims to show violent protests. While on fact-checking the video is of an accidental fire in a petrol pump near Waris Shah station, Murree road, Rawalpindi. The incident took place in March 2021.

Similarly, Sher Muhammad Bugti, a Sweden-based leader of the Baloch Republican Party, an offshoot of the Baloch terrorist Organisation also tweeted using an old video to defame the Pakistani state and government.

In another instance, a Twitter handle shared a video with the Indian-generated hashtag, with expressions like “freedom of expression”, “massacre by the state” and hashtag 1971 revisits, the video attached belonged to ID ‘gautam gada’ having mentioned Mumbai, India in its location

This is not India’s first time. In Oct 2020, a BBC report exposed Indian fake news claiming civil war It was not possible to trace who operated account named @drapr007. The account falsely tweeted that the Pak army and Sindh police confronted each other. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54649302

Can you recall when # Civilwarinkarachi was propagated?
Indian media outlets such as CNN18, Zee News, and India Today reported and amplified those fake news generated by Indian propaganda. Isn’t it an indication of the Indian state-sponsored disinformation campaign against Pak?

The BBC's Reality Check team looked into some of the accounts and websites - some of them impersonating the Sindh police - which had been spreading false news about the situation in Karachi and found them to have links with India

The BBC's Reality Check team looked into some of the accounts and websites - some of them impersonating the Sindh police - which had been spreading false news about the situation in Karachi and found them to have links with India

False trending and retweets would have impacted Pakistan’s international image. The regional realignment in South Asia and the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan are threatening for Indian economic interests in Afghanistan. So India is following the same old tactic.

Then ‘endorsement’ of this discourse by the Indian lobby in Pak makes the purpose of this entire disinformation campaign evident. By linking TLP protests with religious extremism, referring Lashkar e Taiba and contextualizing it with FATF’s grey list –Purpose is crystal clear.