Stanford University internet watchdog has called India out for spreading propaganda against Pakistan all over the world.
This time, researchers at Stanford University Stanford Internet Observatory broke up a bad India online network that was trying to say bad things about Pakistan (SIO).
In a recent study, SIO says that on August 24, 2022, Twitter gave the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium 15 sets of data about information operations that it had found and taken down from its site.
One of the sets of data had 1,198 tweets about India and Pakistan. Because of a violation of Twitter’s Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy, the service temporarily does disable. Twitter said that the data came from India.
You can read the network’s tweets in English, Hindi, and Urdu. In these stories, the people telling them said they were “proud Kashmiris” who were related to Indian troops.
SIO says that the network praised Indian military actions in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and criticized those of Pakistan and China. It also went after people who were against the Indian government over and over again.
Describe the Network
SIO says that 2021 will be the best year for network activity. But by March 2021, Twitter will have banned most of its users.
The network used hashtags all the time, such as #IIOJK, #Indian, and #PakistaniArmy. Most people used the #Kashmir hashtag, which led to almost 40,000 tweets. There were also hashtags with words like “Pakistan,” “India,” “Indian Army,” and “Pakistan Army.”
Tactics
SIO’s investigation found that the vast majority of these accounts said they were from Kashmir and often said they were based in IIOJK. Their profile pictures came from a website that sells stock photos.
“Proud Indian,” “Proud Kashmiri,” “My Heart Belongs to Kashmir,” and “Soul to India and Life to Humanity” were some of the most common phrases in these profiles. Most of these profiles said that they do link to Indian military members, journalists, activists, teachers, students, or anyone with power in digital marketing.
These accounts often mentioned local media, Indian politicians, and Balochistan state officials to spread a message against Pakistan.
One of the network’s Twitter accounts said,
Over the past ten years, #ISI has directly run an internship program through #ISPR. This program has grown into an amazing network of 4,000 highly skilled #Information Warfare specialists.
Narratives
To support the Indian Army
SIO points out that the media often praised the Indian army for its military and humanitarian work in IIOJK.
Anti-Pakistan
The network gave the wrong impression that Balochistan rallies were against Pakistan. They said that members of the Pakistani military have now done destroy people badly. Some people on Twitter said that the country was dangerous for Hindus and that Pakistan had left its people in China when COVID-19 broke out. The network also said bad things about the rights of women in Pakistan.
Anti-China
The network often said that the Indian armed forces were better than the Chinese armed forces and made fun of the Pakistani armed forces. It made it sound like Chinese soldiers were cowards and Indian soldiers were brave. The Indian troops who died fighting the Chinese forces were praised as heroes by the network. It also said that the reason Indian military missions failed was that the Chinese used unethical ways to fight.
Some of the most popular hashtags used by the network to protest China were #IndiaChinaFaceOff, #BoycottMadeInChina, #BoycottChineseProducts, and #BoycottChina.
In addition to telling Indians not to use Chinese apps like TikTok and WeChat, the network stressed how important it is to buy goods made in India. People often called COVID-19 the Chinese virus, and China was often blamed for it.
It also said that China was trying to hide the fact that the Coronavirus had spread around the world. On the other hand, it praised what the Indian government was doing to stop the Coronavirus pandemic.
Conclusion
SIO’s analysis shows that the network praised the Indian military’s participation in IIOJK while criticizing the Pakistani and Chinese militaries. “@KashmirTraitors” and “@KashmirTraitors1” were always two of the best accounts.
A lot of the Indian network seems to have been attacked because of politics. SIO says that this analysis just scratches the surface, so they have asked the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium to look into this system further.
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