Comment by Riaz Haq on December 19, 2020 at 4:55pm

Pakistan’s positives
Sakib SheraniUpdated 18 Dec


https://www.dawn.com/news/1596400



THE recent unearthing by EU DisinfoLab of the vast anti-Pakistan disinformation and propaganda network run by India has brought to light a highly-organised, concerted and sustained effort to malign Pakistan internationally. The main aims of this sinister campaign appear to be:

— Defame and discredit Pakistan in international forums and media.

— Shape the international as well as domestic narrative with regard to Pakistan.

— Defang Pakistan’s ability to influence international human rights forums, principally at the UN and EU, with regard to India’s egregious human rights violations in Indian-occupied and illegally held Kashmir.


— Divert Pakistan-bound investment, exports, tourism to weaken the country’s economy.

A concerted campaign has been waged to deflate the morale of the nation.

While the target audience of this campaign’s aforementioned objectives is external, Pakistan’s population is the target for two additional aims of the Indian campaign (which is in the domain of classic ‘fifth-generation’ or ‘hybrid’ warfare).

— Drive a wedge between the populace and the armed forces.

— Deflate the morale of the Pakistani nation.

These two objectives appear to have greater primacy in the Indian calculus. The instruments in this Indian disinformation campaign are not just the hundreds of fake news outlets, wire services or NGOs that have been out-ed, in addition to an army of internet trolls, but co-opted elements in Pakistan’s political parties, mainstream media and its Twitterati brigade.

Pakistan’s positives
Sakib SheraniUpdated 18 Dec


https://www.dawn.com/news/1596400



In this context, the challenge for many Pakistani commentators has been how to highlight shortcomings and fault lines in the polity and economy without playing into the agenda of deflating morale or reinforcing the stereotypical image of the country that is carefully cultivated by its enemies. Guilty of focusing almost exclusively on the negatives in Pakistan’s situation, it is time to make amends. Here are six major positives with regard to Pakistan’s economy that play a huge role in its functioning — and are generally underreported or rarely mentioned.

The payments system: The payments system is the means of exchanging monetary value within an economy and across national borders. An efficient payments system is the backbone of any economy. The State Bank of Pakistan oversees an effective and efficient national payments system, the backbone of which is the real-time processing and final settlement of funds transfer instructions via its RTGS system. In recent years, however, innovative retail payment platforms have been rolled out and supported, such as branchless banking (especially mobile phone banking). Collectively, the payments system infrastructure (comprising large value, e-banking as well as paper-based) handled around Rs550tr worth of transactions in FY18.

Labour mobility: Another under-appreciated facet of Pakistan’s economy is the near-frictionless physical mobility of labour across the country. Unskilled and semi-skilled workers from the northern areas work in Karachi in the hundreds of thousands, while skilled ‘techies’ from Karachi run start-ups in Lahore and Islamabad without hesitation or cultural difficulty. This aspect makes for efficient allocation of labour in different markets, enhancing overall economic efficiency. (We should remain vigilant, however, as labour mobility across different regions of Pakistan will be in the cross hairs of our enemies as they seek to disrupt the process of national integration.)

A vibrant tech ecosystem: Pakistan is increasingly being viewed internationally as Asia’s next big market for tech start-ups. The start-up scene in Pakistan is thriving with many expatriate Pakistanis returning and contributing to its vibrancy. In addition, an estimated more than 10,000 application developers/ freelancers enter the workforce each year. More than 5,000 IT companies based in Pakistan not just export their services to buyers in nearly 100 countries around the world, but are increasingly able to raise capital from venture capitalists and angel investors too. It is estimated that Pakistan earns anywhere from $2bn to $4bn a year from software exports alone, with official figures understated due to many freelancers preferring to route their export earnings as worker remittances. The rise of digitally savvy consumers, broadband connectivity and availability of a strong tech talent base that is still relatively cheaper and more competitive are propelling the growth in the industry.

The Nadra database: With over 100m computerised national identity cards issued by Nadra, covering 96pc of the country’s adult population, citizen information contained in the Nadra and allied databases is a rich source of data (with history) that can be better utilised for more efficient planning or tax profiling etc.

A giving nation: Pakistanis are a generous, giving nation and one can see this all over the country not just in the form of big-name charitable entities like the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust hospitals, SIUT, Indus Hospital, and the centres for the needy run by the Edhi Foundation etc, but in the form of thousands of charities run by individuals and affluent families across the length and breadth of Pakistan.

Pakistan’s positives
Sakib SheraniUpdated 18 Dec


https://www.dawn.com/news/1596400



According to the Charities Aid Foundation, Pakistan ranks among the top 10 nations in the world both in terms of number of people helping a stranger or donating money. The vast amounts of zakat and charity that Pakistanis channel to their needy brethren is a huge social support system that buttresses the government’s efforts via the Benazir Income Support Program, Baitul Maal and the Ehsaas programme.

A resilient nation: The resilience of Pakistanis has been well noted globally. Despite the most challenging of economic, social or security conditions over a protracted period of time, millions of the country’s citizens have plodded on, not just earning an income for themselves and supporting their families in the process, but starting social initiatives that have immeasurably helped local communities too.

From the Kiran school in Karachi’s Lyari, to feeding the poor initiative in another impoverished neighbourhood, to driving pink rickshaws and women-only taxis, to driving a truck on the highways — all initiatives and endeavours run by women — Pakistanis demonstrate their ‘hardiness’ and resilience daily across the length and breadth of the country. And through it all, they manage a smile on their faces — and don’t compromise on their famed hospitality.

The writer is a former member of the prime minister’s economic advisory council, and heads a macroeconomic consultancy based in Islamabad.

Published in Dawn, December 18th, 2020

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 20, 2020 at 8:38am

#ISIS Story, Told in a #NYTimes Podcast, is Fake. #Pakistani-#Canadian Shehroze Chaudhry, the main source in 2018 podcast “Caliphate,” for New York Times, was a fabulist who spun jihadist tales about killing for the Islamic State in #Syria" #Islamophobia https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/world/middleeast/caliphate-chaud...

A Riveting ISIS Story, Told in a Times Podcast, Falls Apart
A Canadian’s gruesome account as an Islamic State executioner in Syria, which was the subject of the “Caliphate” podcast by The New York Times, was fabricated, officials say. A Times review found no corroboration of his claim to have committed atrocities.

He described the killings in lurid detail — how he shot one man in the head and stabbed another in the heart before hanging the corpse on a cross.

He spoke at length about joining the religious police of the Islamic State in Syria, and being trucked to a terrorist training session on attacking the West, including North America, his homeland.

He recounted how Islamic State commanders displayed maps and color-coded instructions, showing recruits like him how to strike major Western targets, get into restricted areas, kill people and attain martyrdom.

They envisioned “something as spectacular as 9/11,” he said. “They wanted to outdo Al Qaeda, make their mark.”


But Shehroze Chaudhry, the central figure in the 2018 podcast “Caliphate,” by The New York Times, was a fabulist who spun jihadist tales about killing for the Islamic State in Syria, Canadian and American intelligence and law enforcement officials contend.

Mr. Chaudhry, they say, was not a terrorist, almost certainly never went to Syria, and concocted gruesome stories about being an Islamic State executioner as part of a Walter Mitty-like escape from his more mundane life in a Toronto suburb and in Lahore, Pakistan, where he spent years living with his grandparents.

Mr. Chaudhry’s elaborate accounts, told to The Times and other news outlets, caused a political uproar in Canada. The award-winning “Caliphate” series broadcast his claims of killing for the Islamic State to millions of listeners, fueling outrage that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government had allowed a terrorist to live freely in suburban Toronto despite the crimes Mr. Chaudhry had so openly confessed to committing in Syria.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 20, 2020 at 10:31am

The following words from Fareed Zakaria’s Washington Post column on Russian hack of US systems also apply to India’s disinformation campaign against Pakistan: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/russia-hasnt-just-hacked-ou...

“In 2016, two scholars at Rand Corp. wrote a paper describing Russia’s “firehose of falsehood” propaganda model. Very different from Cold War-era propaganda, current Russian approaches work with prevailing technologies and social media platforms. There are two key features — “high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions.” There is no effort at consistency or credibility. The report quotes one analyst: “New Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 23, 2020 at 7:26am

#Canadian police rule out ‘foul play’ in #Pakistani activist #KarimaBaloch death. Her role as a speaker at a UNHRC meeting in March 2019 was mentioned in the report by the #EUDisinfoLab, an independent #NGO based in Brussels. #India #RAW https://aje.io/mdj42 via @AJEnglish

Canadian police have ruled the death of a prominent Pakistani rights activist in the city of Toronto to be “non-criminal”, even as rights groups have called for a more thorough investigation into the incident.

The body of Karima Mehtab Baloch, 37, was found by police on Monday after she had been reported missing a day earlier, police said.

“The circumstances have been investigated and officers have determined this to be a non-criminal death and no foul play is suspected,” said Toronto’s police department in a short statement.

Police said Baloch’s family had been informed of the determination.

While the family was not immediately available for comment, Baloch’s husband Hamal Haider had earlier told Al Jazeera Baloch had been facing numerous and specific threats to her life due to her work in the recent past.

Screenshots of one of the threats, demanding some of Baloch’s statements regarding her rights work be taken down from a website, were shared with Al Jazeera.

She was a prominent and vocal activist for the rights of Pakistan’s ethnic Baloch.

A native of Balochistan province, the country’s largest but least populated and least developed region, Baloch was known for her work on enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings allegedly carried out by Pakistan’s military in the area.

She fled Pakistan due to threats to her life in late 2015 and was granted political asylum by Canada in 2017.

In 2016, the BBC named Baloch as one of its 100 “inspirational and influential women for that year”, citing her activism.

Baloch’s activism
Baloch rose to prominence as the head of the Baloch Students Organisation’s Azad faction (BSO-A), a student political organisation that calls for greater rights and independence for Pakistan’s ethnic Baloch minority.

She took over the position after the previous head, Zahid Baloch, disappeared in mysterious circumstances in 2014. Baloch activists claim he was abducted by the Pakistani military, which has been fighting against armed separatist groups in Balochistan for more than a decade.

Rights groups have documented a sustained campaign of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings targeting pro-independence Baloch activists in the region.

Pakistan’s security forces deny any wrongdoing, claiming those who are counted as “disappeared” are members of armed groups.

Critics of Baloch’s work say it was instigated by Pakistan’s regional rival India, who has been known to support dissident voices against Pakistan’s government.

Karima Baloch was named in a recent in-depth research report into a vast network of fake news websites and questionable NGOs that appeared to be operated by India-based actors to propagate messages critical of the Pakistani government and military.

Her role as a speaker at a UN Human Rights Council meeting in March 2019 on behalf of NGO African Regional Agricultural Credit Association (AFRACA) was mentioned in the report by the EU Disinfo Lab, an independent rights group based in Brussels.

The EU Disinfo Lab identified AFRACA as a legitimate NGO whose name may have been misused by the Indian network to gain access to UN Human Rights Council events.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 27, 2020 at 1:16pm

The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model
Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It

US RAND Research by Christopher Paul, Miriam Matthews

https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. This propaganda includes text, video, audio, and still imagery propagated via the Internet, social media, satellite television, and traditional radio and television broadcasting. The producers and disseminators include a substantial force of paid Internet “trolls” who also often attack or undermine views or information that runs counter to Russian themes, doing so through online chat rooms, discussion forums, and comments sections on news and other websites.4 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that “there are thousands of fake accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and vKontakte” maintained by Russian propagandists. According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.5

Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. This propaganda includes text, video, audio, and still imagery propagated via the Internet, social media, satellite television, and traditional radio and television broadcasting. The producers and disseminators include a substantial force of paid Internet “trolls” who also often attack or undermine views or information that runs counter to Russian themes, doing so through online chat rooms, discussion forums, and comments sections on news and other websites.4 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that “there are thousands of fake accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LiveJournal, and vKontakte” maintained by Russian propagandists. According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.5

All other things being equal, messages received in greater volume and from more sources will be more persuasive.

Share on Twitter
RT (formerly Russia Today) is one of Russia's primary multimedia news providers. With a budget of more than $300 million per year, it broadcasts in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, and several Eastern European languages. The channel is particularly popular online, where it claims more than a billion page views. If true, that would make it the most-watched news source on the Internet.6 In addition to acknowledged Russian sources like RT, there are dozens of proxy news sites presenting Russian propaganda, but with their affiliation with Russia disguised or downplayed.7

Experimental research shows that, to achieve success in disseminating propaganda, the variety of sources matters:

Multiple sources are more persuasive than a single source, especially if those sources contain different arguments that point to the same conclusion.
Receiving the same or similar message from multiple sources is more persuasive.
People assume that information from multiple sources is likely to be based on different perspectives and is thus worth greater consideration.8
The number and volume of sources also matter:

Endorsement by a large number of users boosts consumer trust, reliance, and confidence in the information, often with little attention paid to the credibility of those making the endorsements.
When consumer interest is low, the persuasiveness of a message can depend more on the number of arguments supporting it than on the quality of those arguments.9

Finally, the views of others matter, especially if the message comes from a source that shares characteristics with the recipient:

• Communications from groups to which the recipient belongs are more likely to be perceived as credible. The same applies when the source is perceived as similar to the recipient. If a propaganda channel is (or purports to be) from a group the recipient identifies with, it is more likely to be persuasive.
• Credibility can be social; that is, people are more likely to perceive a source as credible if others perceive the source as credible. This effect is even stronger when there is not enough information available to assess the trustworthiness of the source.
• When information volume is low, recipients tend to favor experts, but when information volume is high, recipients tend to favor information from other users.
• In online forums, comments attacking a proponent's expertise or trustworthiness diminish credibility and decrease the likelihood that readers will take action based on what they have read.¹⁰

The experimental psychology literature suggests that, all other things being equal, messages received in greater volume and from more sources will be more persuasive. Quantity does indeed have a quality all its own. High volume can deliver other benefits that are relevant in the Russian propaganda context. First, high volume can consume the attention and other available bandwidth of potential audiences, drowning out competing messages. Second, high volume can overwhelm competing messages in a flood of disagreement. Third, multiple channels increase the chances that target audiences are exposed to the message. Fourth, receiving a message via multiple modes and from multiple sources increases the message's perceived credibility, especially if a disseminating source is one with which an audience member identifies.

Russian Propaganda Is Rapid, Continuous, and Repetitive

Contemporary Russian propaganda is continuous and very responsive to events. Due to their lack of commitment to objective reality (discussed later), Russian propagandists do not need to wait to check facts or verify claims; they just disseminate an interpretation of emergent events that appears to best favor their themes and objectives. This allows them to be remarkably responsive and nimble, often broadcasting the first “news” of events (and, with similar frequency, the first news of nonevents, or things that have not actually happened). They will also repeat and recycle disinformation. The January 14, 2016, edition of Weekly Disinformation Review reported the reemergence of several previously debunked Russian propaganda stories, including that Polish President Andrzej Duda was insisting that Ukraine return former Polish territory, that Islamic State fighters were joining pro-Ukrainian forces, and that there was a Western-backed coup in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital.¹¹

Sometimes, Russian propaganda is picked up and rebroadcast by legitimate news outlets; more frequently, social media repeats the themes, messages, or falsehoods introduced by one of Russia’s many dissemination channels. For example, German news sources rebroadcast Russian disinformation about atrocities in Ukraine in early 2014, and Russian disinformation about EU plans to deny visas to young Ukrainian men was repeated with such frequency in Ukrainian media that the Ukrainian general staff felt compelled to post a rebuttal.¹²

Why Is Rapid, Continuous, and Repetitive Propaganda Successful?

• First impressions are very resilient.
• Repetition leads to familiarity, and familiarity leads to acceptance.

The experimental psychology literature tells us that first impressions are very resilient: An individual is more likely to accept the first information received on a topic and then favor this information when faced with conflicting messages.¹³ Furthermore, repetition leads to familiarity, and familiarity leads to acceptance:

• Repeated exposure to a statement has been shown to increase its acceptance as true.
• The “illusory truth effect” is well documented, whereby people rate statements as more truthful, valid, and believable when they have encountered those statements previously than when they are new statements.
• When people are less interested in a topic, they are more likely to accept familiarity brought about by repetition as an indicator that the information (repeated to the point of familiarity) is correct.
• When processing information, consumers may save time and energy by using a frequency heuristic, that is, favoring information they have heard more frequently.
• Even with preposterous stories and urban legends, those who have heard them multiple times are more likely to believe that they are true.
• If an individual is already familiar with an argument or claim (has seen it before, for example), they process it less carefully, often failing to discriminate weak arguments from strong arguments.¹⁴

Russian propaganda has the agility to be first, which affords propagandists the opportunity to create the first impression. Then, the combination of high-volume, multichannel, and continuous messaging makes Russian themes more likely to be familiar to their audiences, which gives them a boost in terms of perceived credibility, expertise, and trustworthiness.

Russian Propaganda Makes No Commitment to Objective Reality

It may come as little surprise that the psychology literature supports the persuasive potential of high-volume, diverse channels and sources, along with rapidity and repetition. These aspects of Russian propaganda make intuitive sense. One would expect any influence effort to enjoy greater success if it is backed by a willingness to invest in additional volume and channels and if its architects find ways to increase the frequency and responsiveness of messages. This next characteristic, however, flies in the face of intuition and conventional wisdom, which can be paraphrased as “The truth always wins.”

Contemporary Russian propaganda makes little or no commitment to the truth. This is not to say that all of it is false. Quite the contrary: It often contains a significant fraction of the truth. Sometimes, however, events reported in Russian propaganda are wholly manufactured, like the 2014 social media campaign to create panic about an explosion and chemical plume in St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana, that never happened.¹⁵ Russian propaganda has relied on manufactured evidence—often photographic. Some of these images are easily exposed as fake due to poor photo editing, such as discrepancies of scale, or the availability of the original (pre-altered) image.¹⁶ Russian propagandists have been caught hiring actors to portray victims of manufactured atrocities or crimes for news reports (as was the case when Viktoria Schmidt pretended to have been attacked by Syrian refugees in Germany for Russian's Zvezda TV network), or faking on-scene news reporting (as shown in a leaked video in which “reporter” Maria Katasonova is revealed to be in a darkened room with explosion sounds playing in the background rather than on a battlefield in Donetsk when a light is switched on during the recording).¹⁷

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 15, 2021 at 7:37am

Industrialized Disinformation
2020 Global Inventory of Organized
Social Media Manipulation
Samantha Bradshaw . University of Oxford
Hannah Bailey . University of Oxford
Philip N. Howard . University of Oxford

https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/127/2021/01/C...

Excerpts of Oxford Disinformation Report 2020:

By looking comparatively across the behaviours, expenditures, tools, and resources cyber troop employ, we can begin to build a larger comparative picture of the global organization of social media manipulation. National contexts are always important to consider. However, we suggest it is also worth generalizing about the experience of organized disinformation campaigns across regime types to develop a broad and comparative understanding of this phenomenon. We have begun to develop a simplistic measure to comparatively assess the capacity of cyber troop teams in relation to one another, taking into consideration the number of government actors involved, the sophistication of tools, the number of campaigns, the size and permanency of teams, and budgets or expenditures made. We describe cyber troop capacity on a three-point scale (High, Medium, Low):

High cyber troop capacity involves large numbers of staff, and large budgetary expenditure on psychological operations or information warfare. There might also be significant funds spent on research and development, as well as evidence of a multitude of techniques being used. These teams do not only operate during elections but involve full-time staff dedicated to shaping the information space. High-capacity cyber troop teams focus on foreign and domestic operations. They might also dedicate funds to state-sponsored media for overt propaganda campaigns. High-capacity teams include: Australia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Myanmar, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
----------------

One example of this phenomenon is the human networks of cyber troops in Pakistan, who both artificially boost political campaigns, but also mass report tweets that oppose their agenda as spam, causing the Twitter algorithm to block that issue’s access to the trending panel (Poplzaj & Jahangir, 2019). Recently, however, Twitter has maintained a 0% compliance rate with government requests to take down content that would fall under cyber troop activities (Twitter Transparency Report, 2019). Twitter is not the only platform involved. Facebook and Google have also been a focus of cyber troops in Pakistan: on Facebook, Pakistan successfully restricted more than 5,700 posts between January and June 2019 (Facebook Transparency Report, 2019) and on Google more than 3,299 posts were requested to be removed between January and June 2019 (Google Transparency Report, 2019). Facebook, Twitter and Google have expressed their concern at these restrictive activities and have also recently threatened to remove their services from Pakistan in response to legislative attempts to censor digital content, but they have yet to act on this threat (Singh, 2020)

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 11, 2021 at 9:36am

Cyberspace Plus Trump Almost Killed Our Democracy. Can Europe Save Us?

by Tom Friedman


Cyberspace is starting to resemble a sovereign nation-state, but without borders or governance. It has its own encrypted communications systems, like Telegram, outside the earshot of terrestrial governments. It has its own global news gathering and sharing platforms, like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It even has its own currencies — Bitcoin and others — that no sovereign state has minted.

In recent years, all these platforms have mushroomed. They can elevate important voices that were never heard before. But they can also enable a believer in Jewish-run space laser


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/opinion/cyberspace-democracy-eur...


---------------

Donald Trump has been impeached for trying to kill the results of our last election, but we should have no illusions that whatever happens at his trial, the weapon he used is still freely available for others to deploy. It’s a realm called “cyberspace” — where we’re all connected but no one is in charge.

Trump, like no leader before, took advantage of that realm to spread a Big Lie, undermine trust in our electoral system and inspire an attack on our Capitol. We need a democratic fix for cyberspace fast.

China has figured out how to project its autocratic system and Communist values into cyberspace, to enhance its growth and stability, better than we’ve figured out how to project our democratic values into cyberspace to enhance our growth and stability. And we invented the damn thing!

If we don’t figure this out fast, we’re going to fall behind China economically, because the pandemic has dramatically accelerated the digitization of everything, making cyberspace bigger and more important than ever.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 13, 2021 at 7:11am

India source:

Pakistan plans to set up international media channel funded by China to build narrative: Report (India Today) The leaked documents that Indian agencies have laid their hands on from Pakistan's security establishment show that Pakistan wants to collaborate with China to carry out an information war campaign globally, with Beijing providing finances and guidance.

https://thecyberwire.com/newsletters/daily-briefing/10/118

The leaked documents that Indian agencies have laid their hands on from Pakistan's security establishment show that Pakistan wants to collaborate with China to carry out an information war campaign globally, with Beijing providing finances and guidance.

The concept paper, reviewed by India Today, is titled ‘Building capacity to contest inimical narratives through counter on alternative narratives.’

The paper says the projects looks at truth and factual aspects with a view to quashing misperception.

Internal dynamics in Pakistan are favourable for open media but financial challenges are a hurdle, the paper says while justifying the need to team up with China.

“There is a need for a media house of the stature of Al Jazeera and RT to propel amenable narrative. A media house by Pakistan and funded by China will achieve the stipulated objectives,” the document states.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/pakistan-china-international-...

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 26, 2021 at 4:21pm

#Disinformation Industry is Booming. Abhay Aggarwal, head of #Toronto-based CEO of #disinfo company "Press Monitor", says that his company’s services are used by the #Indian government. Disinfo campaigns have recently been found promoting #BJP #Modi https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/25/world/europe/disinformation-soci...

Private firms, straddling traditional marketing and the shadow world of geopolitical influence operations, are selling services once conducted principally by intelligence agencies.

They sow discord, meddle in elections, seed false narratives and push viral conspiracies, mostly on social media. And they offer clients something precious: deniability.

“Disinfo-for-hire actors being employed by government or government-adjacent actors is growing and serious,” said Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, calling it “a boom industry.”

Similar campaigns have been recently found promoting India’s ruling party, Egyptian foreign policy aims and political figures in Bolivia and Venezuela.

Mr. Brookie’s organization tracked one operating amid a mayoral race in Serra, a small city in Brazil. An ideologically promiscuous Ukrainian firm boosted several competing political parties.

In India, dozens of government-run Twitter accounts have shared posts from India Vs Disinformation, a website and set of social media feeds that purport to fact-check news stories on India.

India Vs Disinformation is, in reality, the product of a Canadian communications firm called Press Monitor.

Nearly all the posts seek to discredit or muddy reports unfavorable to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, including on the country’s severe Covid-19 toll. An associated site promotes pro-Modi narratives under the guise of news articles.

A Digital Forensic Research Lab report investigating the network called it “an important case study” in the rise of “disinformation campaigns in democracies.”

A representative of Press Monitor, who would identify himself only as Abhay, called the report completely false.

He specified only that it incorrectly identified his firm as Canada-based. Asked why the company lists a Toronto address, a Canadian tax registration and identifies as “part of Toronto’s thriving tech ecosystem,” or why he had been reached on a Toronto phone number, he said that he had business in many countries. He did not respond to an email asking for clarification.

A LinkedIn profile for Abhay Aggarwal identifies him as the Toronto-based chief executive of Press Monitor and says that the company’s services are used by the Indian government.
A set of pro-Beijing operations hint at the field’s capacity for rapid evolution.

Since 2019, Graphika, a digital research firm, has tracked a network it nicknamed “Spamouflage” for its early reliance on spamming social platforms with content echoing Beijing’s line on geopolitical issues. Most posts received little or no engagement.

In recent months, however, the network has developed hundreds of accounts with elaborate personas. Each has its own profile and posting history that can seem authentic. They appeared to come from many different countries and walks of life.

Graphika traced the accounts back to a Bangladeshi content farm that created them in bulk and probably sold them to a third party.

The network pushes strident criticism of Hong Kong democracy activists and American foreign policy. By coordinating without seeming to, it created an appearance of organic shifts in public opinion — and often won attention.

The accounts were amplified by a major media network in Panama, prominent politicians in Pakistan and Chile, Chinese-language YouTube pages, the left-wing British commentator George Galloway and a number of Chinese diplomatic accounts.

A separate pro-Beijing network, uncovered by a Taiwanese investigative outlet called The Reporter, operated hundreds of Chinese-language websites and social media accounts.

Comment by Riaz Haq on July 26, 2021 at 5:00pm

Real or Fake, We Can Make Any Message Go Viral: Amit Shah to BJP Social Media Volunteers
"We can keep making messages go viral, whether they are real or fake, sweet or sour," the BJP president boasted.


https://thewire.in/politics/amit-shah-bjp-fake-social-media-messages

“In the elections that took place in Uttar Pradesh a year ago, BJP’s social media workers made two big WhatsApp groups. One had 15 lakhmembers, the other 17 lakh. This means a total of 31 lakh. And every day at 8 am they would send ‘Know the Truth’. In which the truth about all the false stories printed in the newspapers about the BJP was given via WhatsApp, and it would go viral. And whichever paper had carried these stories, ordinary people, and social media, would get after them, that why have you printed lies, you should print the truth. And by doing this, slowly, the media became neutral.

“But we had a volunteer who was smart. As I said, messages go from bottom to top and and top to bottom. He put a message in the group – that Akhilesh Yadav had slapped Mulayam Singh. No such thing had happened. Mulayam and Akhilesh were 600 km apart. But he put this message. And the social media team spread it. It spread everywhere. By 10 that day my phone started ringing, bhaisahab, did you know Akhilesh slapped Mulayam…. So the message went viral. One should not do such things. But in a way he created a certain mahaul (perception). This is something worth doing but don’t do it! (Crowd laughs) Do you understand what I am saying?This is something worth doing but don’t do it! We can do good things too. We are capable of delivering any message we want to the public, whether sweet or sour, true of fake. We can do this work only because we have 32 lakh people in our WhatsApp groups. That is how we were able to make this viral.”

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