Daily Times

India has long been misusing the concept behind the democratisation of Internet access through low-priced data packages offered by telecom companies which allow the common man to speak online. Instead, India has been caught redhanded to misuse the facility to poison the minds of its own public and to influence the international audiences through disinformation and misinformation targeting Pakistan. The world must awake to the recent developments and exposés brought out by international forums regarding Indian fake news networks which are enough to establish that India is neither responsible nor a democracy under the Modi regime. It is disheartening to see that the report by the EU Disinfo has yet to get the due attention from governments despite the fact the world media ran the report as a hard breaking news exposing Indian obsession with Pakistan. Since the advent of social media back in late 200s, the Indian networks have been launching unrelenting campaigns to malign Pakistan on one pretext or another. The EU Disinfo lab has discovered that Indian networks work under these methods: “Extensive use of student interns, here speaking at the United Nations on behalf of one or more of these NGOs; Resurrection of shuttered organisations (NGOs, media) and deceased persons; Use of Regus virtual office addresses or simply fake addresses whenever an address was needed; Misleading representation of the views of individual MEPs as general support or official position from the European Union; and Maximisation of negative content about Pakistan online, primarily using a network of fake local media across the world”.

Fake social media campaigns under 550+ domain names of NGOs, think-tanks, media, European Parliament informal groups, and religious organizations have been targeting Pakistan under different themes. Several social media campaigners still operate day and night on different pretexts. Despite being caught red-handed now and even back in 2018, India has been using social media fearlessly as the world keeps on looking the other way. In 2018, a fact-checking initiative in India, certified by the International Fact-Checking Network, said: “In India, viral misinformation has become a core problem. Especially on Whatsapp, misleading content is now shared virally through end-to-end encrypted solutions”. Moreover, the Modi regime has been using the Internet access to control information as well. Only in 2020, the regime shutdown Internet 64 times. Last year, it was 121 times. The data is enough to expose India. It is time for the world to act now. *