India disinformation network spreading anti-Pakistan propaganda, says European watchdog

[Lonewarrior]

How did India become a fake news hotspot? | DW News​

BJP IT Cell also mentioned in the video [MENTION=76058]cricketjoshila[/MENTION]

 

[MenInG]

An India-based computer hacking gang seized control of computers owned by Pakistani politicians, generals and diplomats and accessed their private conversations, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism claimed in a report.

Apparently, this act has been done on the orders of Indian secret services.

According to the report, several of the political targets seem to have arisen from the continued tensions between India and Pakistan.

On January 10 this year, the Indian gang was assigned breaking into the email account of Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) leader and Minister of Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry.

The hackers used malware to get over the computers and target Pakistan’s senior generals and its embassies in Shanghai, Beijing and Kathmandu in a similar way.

Pervez Musharraf, the former president of the Pakistan, had been the most famous Pakistan-related target.

The hacking gang, which operates under the name WhiteInt, is run from a fourth-floor apartment in a suburb of the Indian tech city Gurugram. Its mastermind is a 31-year-old Aditya Jain.

Aditya Jain is an occasional TV cybersecurity pundit who also holds down a day job at the Indian office of the British accountancy firm Deloitte.

For seven years, Jain has run a network of computer hackers who have been hired by British private detectives to steal the email inboxes of their targets using “phishing” techniques.

Sometimes his team deploy malicious software which takes control of computer cameras and microphones, and allows them to view and listen to their victims.

Earlier this year, undercover reporters approached a number of suspected cybercriminals and contacted Jain.

Jain told them, “I offer access to closed source information of email and computers of the POI [person of interest] anywhere across the globe, an average timeline is around 20 to 30 days.”

Jain took a screenshot of Fawad Chaudhry’s inbox, which has been seen by the Bureau.

PTI leader and former information minister Fawad Chaudhry expressed grave concern on the report and asked if Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto would raise the issue.

Samaa

 

[MenInG]

Hunched over laptops in small office cubicles, a group of Indian fact-checkers is on the frontlines of a war against misinformation, braving online abuse and legal threats.

India has the world's largest number of certified fact-checking organisations, but many feel outnumbered and outgunned in a country with hundreds of millions of internet users and a climate of growing religious intolerance, hate speech and declining press freedom.
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BOOM Live is among the organisations methodically debunking some of the tsunami of falsehoods, but their efforts can feel like a drop in the bucket.

"It's an unequal fight," Jency Jacob, managing editor of BOOM Live, told AFP in the firm's cramped office in a defunct Mumbai industrial complex.

"Fact-checkers are always going to be the underdogs who are going to fight this out... with limited resources."

On a recent workday in October, Jacob huddled with his small team as an air conditioner blasted cool air and a generator hummed in the background.

The team scoured WhatsApp groups –- a leading source of misinformation in India -– and trawled the internet for potential stories to debunk: a politician claiming religious minorities were the biggest users of condoms; rumours that the central bank had misplaced bank notes worth millions; footage showing a political party's rally drew fewer crowds than it claimed.

'Harassment'

BOOM, which launched in 2016 and has 15 fact-checkers across India, has its task cut out in a country where hundreds of millions of smartphones, low data costs and a lack of digital literacy have accelerated the spread of internet falsehoods.

Press freedom in the world's biggest democracy is also increasingly under attack under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, activists say.

India fell eight spots this year to 150 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders.

Fact-checkers are no exception. They say they are increasingly experiencing vicious trolling and online abuse, especially when tackling posts that seek to inflame religious hatred.

Geeta Seshu, co-founder of Indian media watchdog Free Speech Collective, points the finger at a motivated right wing as well as vigilante groups who know they have been caught out.

"(They are) worried that they (the fact-checkers) have managed to very successfully and very quickly point out the kind of disinformation and fake news that is being put out," Seshu told AFP.

A growing number of fact-checkers face "targeted harassment and threats of litigation", Enock Nyariki of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute in the United States told AFP.

In June, Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of fact-checking organisation Alt News and a prominent thorn in the side of Modi's government, was jailed after an anonymous Twitter user accused him of insulting a Hindu god in a four-year-old tweet.

Amid a torrent of abuse by right-wing campaigners, he was granted bail weeks later after battling a pile of cases that left him shuttling between various courts.

Pratik Sinha, the other co-founder of Alt News, said the court battle as well as a slew of defamation notices had added to the financial burden of his organisation, which is entirely funded by donor contributions.

Sinha alleged that those giving money feared retribution after a fintech firm handling the payment gateway to receive donations shared donor data with police following Zubair's arrest.

"Many (donors) have asked: 'Is there a way we could give you money indirectly?'" Sinha told AFP.

'Psychological impact'

India, with a population of 1.4 billion people, has 17 IFCN-certified fact-checking organisations, the most of any country. The United States by comparison has 12.

But the proliferation of misinformation -- in hundreds of regional languages -- has massively outpaced the growth in fact-checking operations.

The consequences of viral misinformation can be deadly. In 2018, dozens of people were killed in a series of lynchings that rocked the country after false rumours of child kidnapping spread on smartphones.

A 2019 study by Microsoft said India had more internet hoaxes and falsehoods than the rest of the world. It showed that 64 percent of Indians had encountered "fake news" compared with a global average of 57 percent.

As in other countries, Indian fact-checkers operate in an ecosystem where internet lies travel faster than truth, and posts peddling misinformation often get more traction than real news.

BOOM's recent debunking of false reports of a coup in China –- fuelled by multiple Indian accounts as well as some mainstream television channels -- highlighted the disturbing reality of misinformation profiteers.

The baseless rumour got so much traction that some online retailers began using the #Chinacoup hashtag to boost posts advertising furniture, cooking ware and appliances, further propelling the lie.

Facing growing pressures, Seshu noted the "psychological impact" on fact-checkers, especially as the job often involves poring over graphic content for long hours.

"It's not easy," Seshu said.

 

[daytrader]

Ghost experts, non-existent think tanks fuel India’s disinformation drive

In spite of two major exposes against the wire service in 2019 and 2020, Asian News International — a major Indian ‘news’ agency — continues to peddle disinformation using “non-existent” sources and ghost “experts” to target regional rivals, particularly Pakistan and China.

This was revealed by the EU DisinfoLab in its latest investigation report ‘Bad Sources (**)’ into anti-Pakistan and China influence operations as part of its follow-up on two previous investigations.

In its earlier reports, the DisInfoLab had said ANI “regularly quoted the defunct ‘EP Today’ and ‘EU Chronicles’, two fake media outlets supposedly specialising in EU affairs that were, in fact, created to push anti-Pakistan/China narratives in India”.

This time again, ANI — which acts as a purveyor of news to millions of Indians — is the kingpin of this disinformation network. Interestingly, typographical errors and “fake personae” are the trademark of this operation — rather these are the telltale signs that the wire service peddles fake news.

“A think tank [IFFRAS] that we had previously linked to the Srivastava group and that was legally dissolved in 2014, is now quoted about twice a week by ANI,” according to the DisInfoLab.

“The think tank’s website falsely mentions real Canadian university professors as participants in a conference that they never attended, even concocting false quotes by these academics,” it said.

ANI amplifies these narratives which are then published across Indian media.

“Besides ANI and those outlets republishing its content, barely any other established media covered the reports produced by these ‘Bad Sources’ (**) — the name we gave to this investigation,” the report added.

...
https://www.dawn.com/news/1738849/g...-think-tanks-fuel-indias-disinformation-drive

 

[MenInG]

Ghost experts, non-existent think tanks fuel India’s disinformation drive

In spite of two major exposes against the wire service in 2019 and 2020, Asian News International — a major Indian ‘news’ agency — continues to peddle disinformation using “non-existent” sources and ghost “experts” to target regional rivals, particularly Pakistan and China.

This was revealed by the EU DisinfoLab in its latest investigation report ‘Bad Sources (**)’ into anti-Pakistan and China influence operations as part of its follow-up on two previous investigations.

In its earlier reports, the DisInfoLab had said ANI “regularly quoted the defunct ‘EP Today’ and ‘EU Chronicles’, two fake media outlets supposedly specialising in EU affairs that were, in fact, created to push anti-Pakistan/China narratives in India”.

This time again, ANI — which acts as a purveyor of news to millions of Indians — is the kingpin of this disinformation network. Interestingly, typographical errors and “fake personae” are the trademark of this operation — rather these are the telltale signs that the wire service peddles fake news.

“A think tank [IFFRAS] that we had previously linked to the Srivastava group and that was legally dissolved in 2014, is now quoted about twice a week by ANI,” according to the DisInfoLab.

“The think tank’s website falsely mentions real Canadian university professors as participants in a conference that they never attended, even concocting false quotes by these academics,” it said.

ANI amplifies these narratives which are then published across Indian media.

“Besides ANI and those outlets republishing its content, barely any other established media covered the reports produced by these ‘Bad Sources’ (**) — the name we gave to this investigation,” the report added.

...
https://www.dawn.com/news/1738849/g...-think-tanks-fuel-indias-disinformation-drive

How is it that this is not being picked up?

All that ANI etc report is now suspect

 

[cricketjoshila]

How is it that this is not being picked up?

All that ANI etc report is now suspect

Because this is a NGO and its funding is traced to Soros. No matter what Dawn tried to project it as.

 

[ahsan17]

Because this is a NGO and its funding is traced to Soros. No matter what Dawn tried to project it as.

News has to be approved by Modi government to be considered reliable.

 

[MenInG]

An image of a grave with a padlocked grille over it was picked up over the last few days by Indian media outlets which then proceeded to incorrectly report that the incident occurred in Pakistan and was done in an effort to prevent necrophilia.

The incident, in fact, took place in India’s Hyderabad.

On April 27, India Today — citing images circulating on social media — reported that some people in Pakistan had resorted to locking their daughter’s graves “to protect them from sexual violence” as the social environment had given rise to a “sexually charged and repressed society”.

Indian news agency ANI on April 29 regurgitated the claims without citing any sources or officials and also referenced an editorial published in Pakistani newspaper Daily Times.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1750493/h...-padlocked-in-pakistan-to-prevent-necrophilia