By: Hammad Asghar Shad
It is no secret that Afghanistan has been in a state of civil war for past many decades and now Taliban resurged and gained military captures of provincial capitals recently in the aftermath of the USA & Allied troops with-drawl without a peaceful and lasting political solution for the region.
However international public opinion is being influenced by a smear and misinformation campaign against the State of Pakistan, Pakistan Army, fanning ethnic nationalism, spreading fake news over FATF, and blaming Pakistan for the current crisis in Afghanistan on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube etc.
By creating bots managed by actors through verified twitter handles (PTM & SAATH forum, Disinfo lab group) with the help of some western accounts such as @Calxandr (Chris Alexander, former conservative party minister of Canada under PM Stephen Harper).
Real public participation in this twitter activity is merely 16%, and according to Twitter T&C this trend is not real and indicates extensive use of bots, coordinated network behavior and fake news pushed across @Twitter from sources linked to Afghanistan and Indian State machinery.
For example hash tag #Sanction Pakistan are propagating misinformation false propaganda and demanding Pakistan to be declared as “Rouge State” and asking the international community of nations to impose sanctions on Pakistan and harm the economic growth and its peaceful role on international stage in a futile effort to build international diplomatic pressure on Pakistan.
Just on twitter 8976 accounts created after August 5th, 2021, 4000 account between Jul 31 to Aug 5th, 2021, 25313 accounts created in July 2021, 390,411 tweets and re-tweets account posted from these new accounts through BOT activity.
Total 52931 accounts participated in this trend 32639 from Afghanistan, 11865 from India, 32224 from Pakistan and others from USA, UK, Canada, UAE, KSA, Qatar etc. G5 Internet Observatory @G5iO_ #Afghan Leaks titled Disinformation & propaganda campaign to sabotage Afghan Peace process highlighted this trend in flagship study and undertook data analytics to deconstruct coordinated disinformation & info-Ops being undertaken by both India & Afghanistan to derail Afghan Peace process.
Social media is not just social media anymore, it has real world consequences on societies and individuals, many that do not have access to internet. Ethical and lawful use of Social media is pivotal for peace and prosperity globally. Fighting disinformation is therefore critical.
Pakistan has lost 70,000 civilians and soldiers besides suffering a loss of more than US$ 150 billion in economic losses owing to terrorist networks.
Pakistan continues to host millions of Afghan refugees for almost four decades with preserving their dignity and honor. There is no military solution to the Afghan conflict. It has caused unimaginable human suffering and destruction of Afghanistan and its neighbor countries especially Pakistan.
It is therefore ethical and legal responsibility of social network platform management to take immediate action to stop the spread false propaganda and smear campaign by investigating the unethical and illegal use of their social networking platforms violating the terms of use.
It is also urged to law enforcement authorities to track and hunt down individuals and entities who are responsible of spreading fake news and committing hate crimes against Pakistan citizens internationally and Canadians of Pakistan Origin here.