India fires salvos of criticism at the Pakistani Fake News Campaign

New Delhi – India criticised in the United Nations that Pakistan is running a malicious Fake News campaign to malign the Indian image, on the social media. India has levelled these allegations citing the report published by the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO).

The Indian permanent representative to the United Nations drew attention to the Pakistani activities saying ‘Pakistan is resorting to negative campaigning to malign the Indian image. These include false propaganda, misinformation and fake news. There is the information on the modus operandi of the campaign in the SIO report- the matter must be investigated further. The truth should come in front of the world.’ Facebook and Instagram had taken action against the accounts of some groups and individuals in Pakistan, for objectionable posts against India. In this, Facebook has taken action against 103 posts, 78 groups, 453 individuals and 107 Instagram accounts, under the charges of false propaganda.

The SIO report says that some people from Pakistan are running a network of fake news and Pakistani political leaders also are connected to these people. Some pages and groups have information regarding Pakistan. In some of these posts, while criticising India, praise has been showered on Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, Prime Minister Imran Khan and Tehreek-e-Insaf party. Facebook had shared some information from this report with SIO on the 28th of August. The report criticises the anti-India campaign run from Pakistan on social media. The report claims that 70,000 accounts and 1.1 million users are connected to this campaign.

Some groups are targeting Indians. This also includes information defaming the Indian Prime Minister and political parties. These posts are in Urdu, English, Hindi and Punjabi languages. Facebook had suspended accounts, linked to Inter-Services Public Relations Wing, of the Pakistan military, in 2019, for spreading fake news.