fb

Radical Islamists targetting India through sponsored fake news, hashtags and propaganda, says report

The report notes that at present Twitter hashtag trend is the single biggest instrument for information warfare and Twitter doesn’t seem to have any measure or even care about such fake anti-India propaganda.

The latest report entitled “Muslim BrotherHood Arrives In India” published by thedisinfolab.org details how the Muslim Brotherhood has launched a campaign targeting India.

The Society of Muslim Brotherhood (Jami’at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun), also known as the Muslim Brotherhood or Muslim Brothers, was born in 1928 in Egypt.

It has projected itself as democratic but in reality, is responsible for many attacks and sowing deep hatred among a large part of the Muslim population.

- Advertisement -

The report notes that the Muslim Brotherhood was conceived as a mimicking instrument to ‘infiltrate’ Western society to provide an intellectual framework to its radical Islamist discourse.

“The objective has been to monopolize the discussion of Islamic world and Muslim affairs by drowning the other voices. It has done so by adopting the ‘appearances’ and ‘mannerisms’ of the western world, including Western costumes (though essentially men).”

The Real Target of this MB led and QTP (Qatar-Turkey-Pakistan) executed slander campaign is Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS). 

Image source: Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – Wikipedia.

However, according to the report, the #BoycottIndianProducts hashtag was widely shared on Twitter as part of including India in this campaign.

This hashtag was started after an eviction drive by Assam Police against illegal encroachers.

This drive had turned violent as illegal encroachers attacked the police.

Soon after, Twitter accounts from Pakistan and middle eastern countries launched the social media campaign to boycott products made in India.

- Advertisement -

According to DisinfoLab, the Assam incident was a mere excuse to run the campaign which was being planned since 2018.

“While on the face of it, the #Boycott_Indian_Products felt like it was a reaction to the most unfortunate and condemnable incident in Assam (and we hope that the culprit be brought to justice soon), it became apparent that the trigger wouldn’t have mattered.”

DisinfoLab report clearly states that most of the prominent handles promoting a campaign against India were directly related to the Muslim Brotherhood.

These accounts posted several videos and images that were unrelated to real incidents and aloes debunked by reputed fact-checkers in India.

The report further claims that many major news portals such as Al Jazeera, TRT World, Rassd News Network, Arabi21, Al-Araby News, and Watan Serb promoted the biased campaign by tweeting about it.

“AJ’s perspective towards India has been less than transparent, to say the least. It has had a history of sharing fake news, particularly targeting India. The anti-India slant of AJ was also visible, where it did not show the J&K as part of India, which is followed by all media houses publishing in India.”

According to the report, this social media trend was interesting, as it reminded of a similar campaign launched through trending #IslamophobiaInIndia in 2019, in the aftermath of the Tablighi Jamaat incident.

“The Pakistani info-war machinery had impersonated scores of prominent Arabic royal families, including women, and creating fake handles in their name, was pushing this coordinated campaign.”

The report observes that no amount of argument or fact-check would be able to counter this sponsored fake agenda of Islamists.  

As the key idea behind it all is to keep repeating the lies until it becomes an established narrative.

“The idea is to flood the media space with so much content that it would look ubiquitous. This will create an impression of large-scale violence.”

A good example of this is the success of #IslamophobiaInIndia campaign, a narrative that is still being cited by well-known journalists and academics.

The report clearly points to Pakistan’s role, especially its ministers, ISI, journalists and strategic analyst, in fake social media campaigns against India.

Image source: DisinfoLab Report 2021.

The worrying trend is that most of these fake handles, accounts or bots are newly created in 2021. 

Image source: DisinfoLab Report 2021.

The report notes that at present Twitter hashtag trend is the single biggest instrument for information warfare and Twitter doesn’t seem to have any measure or even care about such fake anti-India propaganda.

Image source: PM Narendra Modi – Twitter.

It concludes that this fake propaganda and social media war should be a wake-up call for the govt of India as well as for Indian social media users.

“With arrival of Muslim Brotherhood openly in South Asia, this could mark a watershed moment for info-war in South Asia, for which India seems rather ill-prepared.”

The report publisher DisinfoLab.org has been created with the motive of unveiling fake news and propaganda that intend to create turmoil among people in Asia.

Their previous report entitled ‘Kashmir Inc: a Conflict Industry’ had indicated that Qatar-Turkey-Pakistan nexus with the blessings of the Muslim Brotherhood is becoming the new hub for radical Islamists.

,