Two of 265 India-Linked Anti-Pakistan Fake News Sites Located in Pakistan

Researchers at Europe's Disinfo Lab have uncovered a network of 265 online news sites in 65 countries, including Pakistan, using the names and brands of defunct newspapers from the 20th century to push anti-Pakistan media coverage inside the regular news cycle. Two of these sites are located in Pakistani cities of Karachi and Lahore, according to Disinfo Lab's report. They are linked to social media accounts.  These two sites were spewing disinformation on Pakistan using the names of the long defunct Socialist Weekly (Karachi) and Khalsa Akhbar (Lahore), according to Pakistani researchers.  The real Karachi-based Urdu language Socialist Weekly and Lahore-based Punjabi language Khalsa Akhbar ceased publishing decades ago, long before the advent of online publishing.

Two of 265 Anti-Pakistan Websites in Pakistan. Source: EU Disinfo Lab

The fake news sites were aimed at reinforcing the legitimacy of anti-Pakistan NGOs by providing linkable press materials to reinforce an anti-Pakistan agenda. Two of these anti-Pakistan NGOs named by Disinfo Lab are European Organization for Pakistani Minorities (EOPM), and Pakistani Women’s Human Rights Organization.

Anti-Pakistan Fake News Network Managed By Indians

EU DisinfoLab found that this anti-Pakistan campaign is managed by Indian stakeholders, with ties to a large network of think tanks, NGOs, and companies from the Srivastava Group. they also discovered that the IP address of the Srivastava Group is also home to the obscure online media “New Delhi Times” and the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies (IINS), which are all based at the same address in New Delhi, India.

Here are some of EU Disinfo Lab findings from these anti-Pakistan websites:

1. Most of them are named after an extinct local newspaper or spoof real media outlets.

2. They republish content from several news agencies (KCNA, Voice of America, Interfax).

3. Coverage of the same Indian-related demonstrations and events;

4. Republications of anti-Pakistan content from the described Indian network (including EP Today, 4NewsAgency, Times Of Geneva, New Delhi Times).

5. Most websites have a Twitter account as well.

But why have they created these fake media outlets? Disinfo Lab's analysis of the content and how it is shared found several ostensible reason for it:

1. Influence international institutions and elected representatives with coverage of specific events and demonstrations.

2. Provide NGOs with useful press material to reinforce their credibility and thus be impactful.

3. Add several layers of media outlets that quote and republish one another, making it harder for the reader to trace the manipulation, and in turn (sometimes) offer a “mirage” of international support.

4. Influence public perceptions on Pakistan by multiplying iterations of the same content available on search engines.

EU Dininfo Lab has shown that India's disinformation campaign goes well beyond planted stories in Indian media; it extends across 65 countries, including Pakistan, with a network of 265 online news sites. It appears that Indian intelligence agencies have stepped up their 5th generation warfare against Pakistan.

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Comment by Riaz Haq on July 26, 2021 at 5:36pm

Abhay Aggarwal 3rd degree connection3rd
Media Monitoring, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Content, Infographics, Video, Web and Mobile Apps Development
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Press Monitor is India's leading media monitoring service.

Press Monitor services are used by President of India, Prime Minister of India, all the ministries of the Indian government, all Indian embassies worldwide, statutory bodies, regulatory bodies, public sector undertakings, multinational companies and Indian enterprises.

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Media Monitoring, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Content, Infographics, Video, Web and Mobile Apps Development

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Abhay Aggarwal 3rd degree connection3rd
Media Monitoring, Public Relations, Digital Marketing, Content, Infographics, Video, Web and Mobile Apps Development
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Nearly 24 years experience in dealing with senior executives and business leaders. Two decades experience involving application of mind and discretion.

Strong understanding of business issues at national and international level. Daily interaction with news over 24 years.

Ability to lead complex projects from concept to fully operational status. Have handled projects in the UK, India and working closely with the government of Seychelles.

Goal-oriented individual with strong leadership capabilities. Managing team of 60 people with very little staff turnover. Many employees have stayed for more than 10 years.

Ability to do business in an international environment cutting across geographies, ethnic backgrounds, and languages.

Specialties: Business representation in the UK, News Aggregation Services, Web-based application development

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 8, 2021 at 6:55pm

#Indian news channels use Arma 3 gameplay footage to claim #Pakistan bombed #Panjshir #Afghanistan.
The footage first appeared on Indian news channels including Republic TV, Times Now Navbharat, Zee Hindustan, and TV9 Bharatvarsh. #fakenews | PC Gamer
https://www.pcgamer.com/arma-3-pakistan-footage/

It's easy to see how the deceptive edit was made. In Compared Comparison's YouTube video, zoomed-in shots of the attacking aircraft do look moderately convincing, at least until the video zooms out to show the digital anti-air vehicle firing and later blowing up in a not-so-realistic fashion.

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

During Republic TV's broadcast, the anchor can be heard repeating the claim that the Pakistani airforce performed an airstrike in Panjshir. The claim was originally recognized as fraudulent by Boom, a group that calls itself India's "first and leading fact checking website and initiative," and is a member of the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network initiative.

Republic TV meanwhile has a sordid history of far right-wing reporting and supporting India's prime minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist policies, according to Aljazeera. Vikas Khanchandani, CEO of ARG (owner of Republic TV) was arrested in December 2020 for allegedly rigging ratings in order to charge advertisers more.



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In a bizarre development, some Indian news broadcasts claimed that the Pakistani airforce attacked the Panjshir valley, an Afghanistan mountain province home to about 170,000 people, which is currently the last major holdout of anti-Taliban forces.

The only problem? The footage used to report the supposedly pro-Taliban airforce attack came from the popular military simulation game Arma 3.

The footage first appeared on Indian news channels including Republic TV, Times Now Navbharat, Zee Hindustan, and TV9 Bharatvarsh. The original video was credited to a source called "Hasti TV" on Facebook, which has since been deleted. These Indian news sources claimed the video showed a military jet attempting a bombing run on Panjshir.

In fact, the footage came from this January Arma 3 video from the YouTube channel Compared Comparison, which has now been viewed 23 million times. The gameplay shows players engaging in a ground-to-air battle between a jet and a vehicle-mounted anti-air turret with tracer rounds seen firing through the sky at the jet.

In a statement to PC Gamer, a representative for Arma 3 developer Bohemia Interactive confirmed that the original footage does indeed come from the game.

"Strangely, we've seen this particular game footage be used several times by certain media outlets in support of their real-life news coverage," the Bohemia Interactive rep said. "We know this because we've been previously approached regarding similar occurrences by fact-checkers from organizations such as Agence France-Presse, Check Your Fact, PolitiFact, and if I remember correctly, also Reuters."

Bohemia Interactive added that the game footage used in the erroneous Indian news broadcasts may also have come from two other Arma 3 gameplay clips.

"The clip in the [original viral tweet] is so cropped and low-res that I find it hard to compare and say for sure which it is, but I'm confident it is Arma 3 footage," Bohemia Interactive's rep said.


Comment by Riaz Haq on September 10, 2021 at 1:49pm

F16 Shot Down? How #Indian #Media Again ‘Downed A #Pakistan #F16 Jet’ & Triggered A #SocialMedia Storm. Fact-checkers and independent journalists debunked the claim and said the image in question was a #US Airforce F-16 Fighting Falcon https://eurasiantimes.com/f-16-shot-down-how-indian-media-again-dow... via @THEEURASIATIMES


An image of a downed F-16 fighter aircraft had been repeatedly shown by a section of Indian TV news channels earlier this week, creating a social media storm.

The picture originated from an unverified Twitter handle claiming to be operated by Ahmad Massoud, the son of a legendary Afghan rebel commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud.

The viral tweet with the caption, “The Pakistani Jet Plane that was shot down by the lion cubs” gave the impression that the aircraft was shot down by the Afghan resistance fighters in Panjshir valley.

However, fact-checkers and independent journalists debunked the claim and said the image in question was a US Airforce F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Fact vs Fiction
A 2018 news report by the US-based publication Military Factory confirms that an F-16 had taken off from the Luke Airforce Base in Arizona following which it met with an accident near the Arizona-California border.

The report noted that the pilot had managed to eject in the nick of time and was stable. The jet in question was an F-16C assigned to the 56th Fighter Wing. It seemed the aircraft diverted from its predestined route as the pilot tried to land it inside the Lake Havasu Municipal Airport around 10:50 am local time.

Following the ejection, the pilot was rushed to the Havasu Regional Medical Center. Witnesses in proximity to the crash site posted pictures on social media. A Facebook group in particular called Air Force amn/nco/snco posted pictures of the crash.

Another F-16 operated by the 162nd Wing of the Air National Guard, which trained Iraqi pilots, had also crashed a year before this incident. This marked two F-16 crashes within a year.

The Fighting Falcon
America’s Vietnam debacle led policymakers in Washington to consider designing and developing a light fighter aircraft. USAF’s bulky F-4 Phantom delivered a lackluster performance against the North Vietnamese Airforce.

This led to some soul searching, which eventually resulted in the development of the F-16 Fighting Falcon by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin.

F-16s were USAF’s first multi-role jet and have been considered one of the most prolific fighter platforms in military aviation history. The service currently has a fleet of over 2,000 F-16s while another 2,500 are operational in 25 countries including Pakistan.

Colonel Vinay B Dalvi (Retd), author, former Associate Editor of the Fauji Magazine and Chief Editor of Mission Victory India told The EurAsian Time, “While I have never operated aircraft, which is obvious given my humble background as an infantry officer, I have spoken to numerous Indian Air Force officers and aviation veterans during the research of my books. What I have learned is that the F-16 is a highly potent aircraft platform and an excellent war machine.

“Veterans from military aviation circles have often lauded its aerial performance in conversations. Based on this input, I have been able to gauge that the F-16 is incredibly fast, has extreme levels of operational agility, and whatever its pitfalls get made up by its lower cost.”

The F-16 has earned the distinction of being one of the most sophisticated aircraft of its kind and has remained an economically viable option for air forces around the world.

While the F-16 falls short when it comes to range and payload capacities as compared to the specifications offered by twin-engine fighter jets like the F-15 Eagle, it is considered an acceptable tradeoff, given the aircraft’s economic viability which plays a crucial role in procurement.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 13, 2021 at 12:03pm

Ex-Indian army officer shares picture from movie set as 'truth' about Pakistan Army's presence in Panjshir
Former Indian major general believes picture showing Pakistani actors Shaan Shahid and Umair Jaswal is of soldiers in Afghanistan.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1645991


A retired Indian army officer became the butt of a joke on Twitter after he mistook a photo from a Pakistani military-themed film as showing Pakistani soldiers who he falsely claimed were martyred in Afghanistan's Panjshir valley.

The apparent confusion started after another former Indian army officer, Maj Gen GD Bakshi, posted a tweet claiming that the Pakistan Army had "suffered very heavy casualties" in Panjshir, where the Taliban and resistance fighters engaged in heavy fighting earlier this month.

Without sharing any evidence, Bakhsi tweeted that dozens of Pakistani soldiers had lost their lives and many others were wounded while supporting the Taliban in Panjshir. He wrote that a certain "Maj Gen Adil Rehmani has come back to organise discreet funerals in [the] dead of night." Even though the account is not verified by Twitter, Bakshi's tweets have been carried by Indian media on multiple occasions in the past.

Bakshi, who had a long career in the Indian army and holds a PhD in military history, is known for peddling fake news and rhetoric on Indian TV. An article by Indian publication The Print last year referred to him as the "shrillest warmonger in the media".

Responding to his latest claims about Pakistani soldiers, a Pakistani account with the handle @Fauji_Doctor shared a picture from the set of the 2017 Pakistani movie *Yalghaar* — ostensibly to poke fun at the Indian ex-officer, and wrote: "My class fellow from school days Maj Aijaj 2nd from left and Capt Jufar 1st from left embraced martyrdom in Panjshir. They were buried yesterday in Peshawar. ISPR is trying to hide these casualties. They fought bravely and should be honoured as such. This is injustice by Pak Army."

In fact, the two uniformed men he referred to are renowned Pakistani actors Shaan Shahid and Umair Jaswal - neither of whom are members of the armed forces.

Unaware of this and apparently without having done any investigation, former Indian Maj Gen Harsha Kakar shared a screenshot of @Fauji_Doctor's reply to Bakshi as "the truth on #PanjshirValley and Pak casualties".

"As expected [National Security Adviser Moeed Yusuf] lied and Pak disowned its dead," he alleged.

Pakistanis were amused by the Indian ex-officer's apparent naivete, with Shaan himself replying to Bakshi's original tweet with posters from Yalghaar. "Hello from the other side," he wrote with the pictures.


Jaswal too found the mix-up hilarious, responding to Bakshi with a picture of him in commando gear and writing: "Hello dear [laughing emoji] from Pakistan."

Jumping at the opportunity, other Pakistani users also shared spoof images of Pakistani actors in uniform to add to the joke.

Fake news about Pakistan's military involvement in Afghanistan surfaced as the Taliban said on Monday they had taken control of Panjshir province north of Kabul, the last holdout of anti-Taliban forces in the country and the only province the Taliban had not seized during their blitz across the country last month.

The anti-Taliban forces had been led by the former vice president, Amrullah Saleh, and Ahmad Massoud, whose father was killed just days before the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US.

With Taliban fighters advancing into Panjshir, Indian media outlets during the previous week ran unverified claims of Pakistan Air Force planes hovering over Panjshir valley and dropping bombs on resistance fighters in support of the Taliban.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 20, 2021 at 11:36am

Watch Indian fake news anchor Arnab Goswami claim that Pakistani Army officers retreating from Panjshir Valley are now on the 5th floor of the Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan. Fact: There are only three floors, including ground floor, in Kabul Serena hotel building. In 'The Debate' on Republic World TV last week, Goswami invited Indian analyst General G.D. Bakshi and PTI spokesperson Abdul Samad Yaqoob — to represent Pakistan. Goswami to Yaqoob: "You go and check today ... on the fifth floor of the Serena Hotel, I am telling you, please check, fifth floor of the Serena Hotel in Kabul, how many Pakistani army officers are there?" Yaqoob: " "What I got to know from my sources [is that] Serena has only two floors. There are no third, fourth or fifth floors."

https://youtu.be/9ZQ1NttzbZE

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 17, 2021 at 8:26am

Prominent female #Indian journalists critical of #Modi government targeted by online scammers. Lured with fake job offers from #Harvard University in #Cambridge #Massachusetts. #BJP #Hindu #Hindutva #India https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/technology/harvard-job-scam-indi...

Nearly a year later, it is still uncertain why Ms. Razdan and the other women were targeted. Although the scammers expressed support online for the Hindu nationalist movement in India, they shed little light on their decision to trick reporters.

The perpetrators have successfully covered their tracks — at least, most of them. The New York Times reviewed private messages, emails and metadata the scammers sent to the women as well as archives of the scammers’ tweets and photos that the scammers claimed were of themselves. The Times also relied on analysis from researchers at Stanford University and the University of Toronto who study online abuse, and from a cybersecurity expert who examined Ms. Razdan’s computer.

The identities of the scammers remain a secret.

“It’s not like anything I’ve ever seen,” said Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, an institute at the University of Toronto that investigates cyberattacks on journalists. “It’s a huge amount of effort and no payoff that we’ve identified.”

--------
One at a time, the scammers selected their prey.

The first known target: Rohini Singh, an outspoken female journalist who had broken some big stories that powerful men in India didn’t like.

Ms. Singh delivered a blockbuster article in 2017 about the business fortunes of the son of India’s current minister of home affairs. She is a freelance contributor to an online publication called The Wire that is among the most critical of the Hindu nationalist government in India. She has also amassed nearly 796,000 Twitter followers.


-------

The next target was another female journalist, Zainab Sikander. An up-and-coming political commentator, Ms. Sikander campaigns against discrimination toward Muslims, a growing problem under the Hindu nationalist government. She has also written and posted many critical observations of the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On Aug. 22, 2019, Ms. Sikander, too, received a Twitter message from Tauseef Ahmad, inviting her to participate in a high-powered media conference at Harvard. It was the same message sent to Ms. Singh, though neither woman knew the other had been targeted.

-----------

Just like in Ms. Singh’s case, Tauseef connected her to Alex Hirschman. What she didn’t know was that Alex and Tauseef were likely fake personas — a search of Harvard’s student directory showed no students by either name.

Ms. Sikander also didn’t know that Tauseef’s Twitter account was one of several online personas that were interlinked. Tauseef and Alex seemed so friendly, sending her compliments — and confirmations for the flights and hotels they claimed to have booked.

--------------
The next target was another female journalist working at a prominent Indian publication, who spoke with The Times on the condition that she was not identified. Suspicious about the scammer’s U.A.E. phone number, she quickly broke off contact too. But the scammers didn’t give up. By the time they communicated in November 2019 with Nighat Abbass, a spokeswoman for India’s ruling political party, known by its acronym, the B.J.P., they had copied email signatures from real Harvard employees and swiped official letterhead from the university’s website.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 5, 2022 at 11:54am

#Indian "journalist" Barkha Dutt tells colleague Madhu Trehan how she self-censored while reporting from #Kargil in 1999. She self-censors "anything she saw that Indian #Army did" in #Indian Occupied #Kashmir "in the interest of national security". #media https://youtu.be/w4woLeBD3r4

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 23, 2022 at 9:52pm

My Heart Belongs to Kashmir
An Analysis of a Pro-Indian Army Covert Influence Operation on Twitter


https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/india-twitter-takedown

On August 24, 2022, Twitter shared 15 datasets of information operations it identified and removed from the platform with researchers in the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium for independent analysis. One of these datasets included 1,198 accounts that tweeted about India and Pakistan. Twitter suspended the network for violating their Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy, and said that the presumptive country of origin was India. Our report builds on a report on this same network by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

The network tweeted primarily in English, but also in Hindi and Urdu. Accounts claimed to be proud Kashmiris and relatives of Indian soldiers. Tweets praised the Indian Army’s military successes and provision of services in India-administered Kashmir and criticized the militaries of China and Pakistan. Two accounts existed to target specific individuals who were perceived as enemies of the Indian government.

Twitter is not publicly attributing this network to any actor, and the open source evidence did not allow us to make any independent attribution. In the report, however, we highlight some noteworthy articles in the Indian press. These articles show that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have previously temporarily suspended the official accounts for the Chinar Corps. The Chinar Corps is a branch of the Indian army that operates in Kashmir. One article, citing Army officials as its source, says that the Facebook and Instagram accounts were suspended for "coordinated inauthentic behavior." Our report also notes that the content of the Twitter network is consistent with the Chinar Corps’ objectives, praising the work of the Indian Army in India-occupied Kashmir, and that the official Chinar Corps Twitter account is one of the most mentioned or retweeted account in the network.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 23, 2022 at 10:00pm

US report unearths Indian army propaganda campaign

The purpose of the Twitter accounts in the network was to praise the Indian Army for their "military successes" and "provision of humanitarian services in India-administered Kashmir".

https://twitter.com/stanfordio/status/1572627130449821697?s=20&...

https://www.globalvillagespace.com/us-report-unearths-indian-army-p...

Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) recently published a report analyzing a pro-Indian Army propaganda campaign on social media.

To clarify, the Stanford Internet Observatory is a program of the Cyber Policy Center which is a joint initiative of the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies and the prestigious Stanford Law School in the US.

The report titled “My Heart Belongs to Kashmir: An Analysis of a Pro-Indian Army Covert Influence Operation on Twitter” takes note of a Twitter network that was recently suspended and concludes that the network was consistent with the Chinar Corps.

To clarify, the Chinar Corps is a Corps of the Indian Army that is presently located in Srinagar and responsible for military operations in the Kashmir Valley. Chinar Corps also has social media accounts where it consistently promotes a positive image of the Indian Army despite its internationally recognized human rights violations in Kashmir. Moreover, the social media accounts of Chinar Corps were suspended and blocked for short periods of time on multiple occasions for “coordinated inauthentic activity”.

Last month, Twitter identified a network of over 1000 accounts that tweeted about India and Pakistan. Twitter suspended the network for violating its Platform Manipulation and Spam Policy and said that the presumptive country of origin was India.

Indian propaganda?

The SIO report notes that while the network was not attributed to any actor or organization, there were many similarities to the Chinar Corps.

“The content of the Twitter network is consistent with the Chinar Corps’ objectives, praising the work of the Indian Army in India-occupied Kashmir,” the SIO report states.

The network was made up of several Twitter accounts posing as fake Kashmiris with images taken from elsewhere on the internet, for instance, Getty Stock Images.

“Tweets tagging journalists aimed either to bring events to the attention of reporters or to bring the reporter to the attention of followers—often in an apparent attempt to target the reporter for what was framed as anti-India content,” the report further revealed.

Moreover, the purpose of the Twitter accounts in the network was to praise the Indian Army for their “military successes” and “provision of humanitarian services in India-administered Kashmir”. The accounts also criticized Pakistan and China who are rivals of India.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 28, 2022 at 10:15am

Video: Indian Film Festival IFFI Jury Head Calls 'Kashmir Files' "Vulgar"
Calling it "propaganda" and a "vulgar movie", Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, who headed the IFFI jury, said "all of them" were "disturbed and shocked" to see the film screened at the festival.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/film-festival-iffi-jury-head-calls-...

New Delhi: The jury of 53rd International Film Festival in Goa has slammed the controversial movie "The Kashmir Files", which revolves around the killings and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990 from Kashmir Valley. Calling it "propaganda" and a "vulgar movie", Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, who headed the IFFI jury, said "all of them" were "disturbed and shocked" to see the film screened at the festival.
"It seemed to us like a propagandist movie inappropriate for an artistic, competitive section of such a prestigious film festival. I feel totally comfortable to share openly these feelings here with you on stage. Since the spirit of having a festival is to accept also a critical discussion which is essential for art and for life," Mr Lapid said in his address.

The Anupam Kher, Mithun Chakraborty and Pallavi Joshi starrer, directed by Vivek Agnihotri, was featured in the "Panorama" section of the festival last week.


The film has been praised by the BJP and has been declared tax-free in most BJP-ruled states and was a box office hit. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah have praised on the movie.

Many, however, have criticised the content, calling it a one-sided portrayal of the events that is sometimes factually incorrect and claiming the movie has a "propagandist tone".

In May, Singapore banned the movie, citing concerns over its "potential to cause enmity between different communities".

"The film will be refused classification for its provocative and one-sided portrayal of Muslims and the depictions of Hindus being persecuted in the ongoing conflict in Kashmir," read a statement from the Singapore government, reported news agency Press Trust of India.

Mr Agnihotri has alleged an "international political campaign" against him and his film by foreign media.

He claimed this was the reason his press conference was cancelled by the Foreign Correspondents Club and the Press Club of India in May.

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