India farm laws: Fake social media profiles targeting Sikhs exposed

[Premi5]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-59338245

 

India farm laws: Fake social media profiles targeting Sikhs exposed

By Shruti Menon and Flora Carmichael
BBC Reality Check & BBC Monitoring

Published

8 hours ago

Share

Related Topics

• Indian farmers protest 2020

A network of fake social media profiles of people claiming to be Sikhs, and promoting divisive narratives, has been exposed.

A new report shared exclusively with the BBC ahead of its publication on Wednesday identified 80 accounts in the network, which have now been suspended because they were fake.

The influence operation used accounts across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to promote Hindu nationalism and pro-Indian government narratives.

The aim of the network appears to have been to "alter perceptions on important issues around Sikh independence, human rights and values", according to the report's author, Benjamin Strick.

There is no evidence linking this network directly with the Indian government, which has yet to respond to a BBC request for comment.

'Sock puppets'

The network used so-called "sock puppet" accounts, which are fake ones controlled by real people posing as independent individuals, rather than automated "bots".

The fake profiles used Sikh names and claimed to be "Real Sikhs". They used the hashtags #RealSikh to endorse, and #FakeSikh to discredit, different political viewpoints.

The report, from non-profit organisation the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), found many of the accounts in the network used the same fake profiles across several platforms. These accounts shared the same names, profile pictures and cover photos, and published identical posts.

Many of the accounts used profile pictures of celebrities, including actresses in the Punjabi film industry.

IMAGE SOURCE,BENJAMIN STRICK / CIR

Image caption,

The fake accounts used pictures of celebrities and gave them Sikh names

Using a celebrity profile picture does not in itself prove an account is fake. However, the report says that combined with the co-ordinated messaging, frequently used hashtags, similar biography descriptions and follower patterns, the pictures added to the evidence that each of these accounts was not genuine.

The BBC attempted to contact eight of the celebrities whose images had been used, requesting comment. One replied via their management to confirm they were not aware their image had been used in this way, and said they would take action.

The management of another celebrity said there are thousands of such fake accounts associated with their client, and there wasn't much they could do about it.

Political motives

On Friday, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of three controversial farm laws after a year of farmers protesting against them.

The farmers' protests, which started a year ago this week, and the decades-old Khalistan independence movement were the two discussion topics most frequently targeted by the network. According to the report, the accounts sought to label any notion of Sikh independence as extremist, and delegitimise the farmers' protests, claiming they had been hijacked by "Khalistani terrorists".

• Farm laws: India PM Narendra Modi repeals controversial reforms
• The dead professor and the vast pro-India disinformation campaign

But before that, the Indian government had also claimed that the farmers' protest had been "infiltrated by the Khalistanis".

The farmers who continue to protest believe this may have been a deliberate political move.

"We believe these accounts were set up at the behest of the government and it was done to set a narrative against the protests" said Jagjit Singh Dalewal, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, one of about 30 unions sitting in protest.

Some accounts painted diaspora communities in the UK and Canada as harbouring the Khalistani movement.

The accounts had thousands of followers, and posts from the network have been liked and retweeted by real influencers and quoted on news sites.

IMAGE SOURCE,TWITTER

Image caption,

This Tweet from a fake account in the network received nearly 17,000 likes

Impact and influence

Many influence operations fail to get real people to interact with the fake accounts they create. In the case of this network though, the research identified posts which were interacted with and endorsed by the verified accounts of public figures.

The report also identified content from the fake profiles embedded on news blogs and commentary sites.

Experts on influence operations describe this as "amplification", and the more the network receives, the more impact it can have.

The BBC contacted some of the verified accounts which had interacted with posts in the network.

Rouble Nagi, who on Twitter describes herself as a humanitarian and social worker, had responded to one of the fake accounts' tweets with two clapping hands emojis. She said she is "sad that it was a fake account".

Col Rohit Dev, who calls himself a geopolitical military analyst, had responded to one of these accounts' posts with thumbs-up emojis, but told us he did not know the person behind the handle.

Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights activist and editor of technology policy website MediaNama, says that these influence networks target individuals with a particular point of view.

"These 80-odd accounts will not necessarily make something trend, but with consistent posting, they try to discredit a point of view," he said.

"This seems to be a sophisticated approach, and seems to be a part of a larger operation."

IMAGE SOURCE,BENJAMIN STRICK / CIR

Image caption,

This graph shows how the Twitter accounts in the network interacted with each other - the bigger the circle, the more interactions

Very little of the content included text in Punjabi - the biggest language for Sikhs in India - and nearly all the content was in English.

Mr Pahwa points out that there was political activity around the farmer's protests from all sides, with people trying to support and discredit them.

"It's all a part of the game to win the political narrative war."

• Vast pro-Indian 'propaganda' network exposed
• How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda
• The dead professor and the vast pro-India network

The BBC shared the report with Twitter and Meta - the company which owns Facebook and Instagram - requesting comment.

Twitter suspended the accounts for violating their rules prohibiting "platform manipulation" and fake accounts.

A Twitter spokesperson said: "At this time, there's no evidence of widespread co-ordination, the use of multiple accounts by single people, or other platform manipulation tactics."

Meta also removed the accounts on Facebook and Instagram for violating its "inauthentic behaviour" policies.

A Meta spokesperson said the accounts "misled people about the origin and popularity of their content and used fake accounts to spam people and evade our enforcement".

[GurjantGnostic]

22 minutes ago, Premi5 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-59338245

 

India farm laws: Fake social media profiles targeting Sikhs exposed

By Shruti Menon and Flora Carmichael
BBC Reality Check & BBC Monitoring

Published

8 hours ago

Share

Related Topics

• Indian farmers protest 2020

A network of fake social media profiles of people claiming to be Sikhs, and promoting divisive narratives, has been exposed.

A new report shared exclusively with the BBC ahead of its publication on Wednesday identified 80 accounts in the network, which have now been suspended because they were fake.

The influence operation used accounts across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to promote Hindu nationalism and pro-Indian government narratives.

The aim of the network appears to have been to "alter perceptions on important issues around Sikh independence, human rights and values", according to the report's author, Benjamin Strick.

There is no evidence linking this network directly with the Indian government, which has yet to respond to a BBC request for comment.

'Sock puppets'

The network used so-called "sock puppet" accounts, which are fake ones controlled by real people posing as independent individuals, rather than automated "bots".

The fake profiles used Sikh names and claimed to be "Real Sikhs". They used the hashtags #RealSikh to endorse, and #FakeSikh to discredit, different political viewpoints.

The report, from non-profit organisation the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), found many of the accounts in the network used the same fake profiles across several platforms. These accounts shared the same names, profile pictures and cover photos, and published identical posts.

Many of the accounts used profile pictures of celebrities, including actresses in the Punjabi film industry.

IMAGE SOURCE,BENJAMIN STRICK / CIR

Image caption,

The fake accounts used pictures of celebrities and gave them Sikh names

Using a celebrity profile picture does not in itself prove an account is fake. However, the report says that combined with the co-ordinated messaging, frequently used hashtags, similar biography descriptions and follower patterns, the pictures added to the evidence that each of these accounts was not genuine.

The BBC attempted to contact eight of the celebrities whose images had been used, requesting comment. One replied via their management to confirm they were not aware their image had been used in this way, and said they would take action.

The management of another celebrity said there are thousands of such fake accounts associated with their client, and there wasn't much they could do about it.

Political motives

On Friday, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of three controversial farm laws after a year of farmers protesting against them.

The farmers' protests, which started a year ago this week, and the decades-old Khalistan independence movement were the two discussion topics most frequently targeted by the network. According to the report, the accounts sought to label any notion of Sikh independence as extremist, and delegitimise the farmers' protests, claiming they had been hijacked by "Khalistani terrorists".

• Farm laws: India PM Narendra Modi repeals controversial reforms
• The dead professor and the vast pro-India disinformation campaign

But before that, the Indian government had also claimed that the farmers' protest had been "infiltrated by the Khalistanis".

The farmers who continue to protest believe this may have been a deliberate political move.

"We believe these accounts were set up at the behest of the government and it was done to set a narrative against the protests" said Jagjit Singh Dalewal, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, one of about 30 unions sitting in protest.

Some accounts painted diaspora communities in the UK and Canada as harbouring the Khalistani movement.

The accounts had thousands of followers, and posts from the network have been liked and retweeted by real influencers and quoted on news sites.

IMAGE SOURCE,TWITTER

Image caption,

This Tweet from a fake account in the network received nearly 17,000 likes

Impact and influence

Many influence operations fail to get real people to interact with the fake accounts they create. In the case of this network though, the research identified posts which were interacted with and endorsed by the verified accounts of public figures.

The report also identified content from the fake profiles embedded on news blogs and commentary sites.

Experts on influence operations describe this as "amplification", and the more the network receives, the more impact it can have.

The BBC contacted some of the verified accounts which had interacted with posts in the network.

Rouble Nagi, who on Twitter describes herself as a humanitarian and social worker, had responded to one of the fake accounts' tweets with two clapping hands emojis. She said she is "sad that it was a fake account".

Col Rohit Dev, who calls himself a geopolitical military analyst, had responded to one of these accounts' posts with thumbs-up emojis, but told us he did not know the person behind the handle.

Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights activist and editor of technology policy website MediaNama, says that these influence networks target individuals with a particular point of view.

"These 80-odd accounts will not necessarily make something trend, but with consistent posting, they try to discredit a point of view," he said.

"This seems to be a sophisticated approach, and seems to be a part of a larger operation."

IMAGE SOURCE,BENJAMIN STRICK / CIR

Image caption,

This graph shows how the Twitter accounts in the network interacted with each other - the bigger the circle, the more interactions

Very little of the content included text in Punjabi - the biggest language for Sikhs in India - and nearly all the content was in English.

Mr Pahwa points out that there was political activity around the farmer's protests from all sides, with people trying to support and discredit them.

"It's all a part of the game to win the political narrative war."

• Vast pro-Indian 'propaganda' network exposed
• How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda
• The dead professor and the vast pro-India network

The BBC shared the report with Twitter and Meta - the company which owns Facebook and Instagram - requesting comment.

Twitter suspended the accounts for violating their rules prohibiting "platform manipulation" and fake accounts.

A Twitter spokesperson said: "At this time, there's no evidence of widespread co-ordination, the use of multiple accounts by single people, or other platform manipulation tactics."

Meta also removed the accounts on Facebook and Instagram for violating its "inauthentic behaviour" policies.

A Meta spokesperson said the accounts "misled people about the origin and popularity of their content and used fake accounts to spam people and evade our enforcement".

Now isn't that interesting and familiar to us here. 

[Suchi]

3 hours ago, Premi5 said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-59338245

 

India farm laws: Fake social media profiles targeting Sikhs exposed

By Shruti Menon and Flora Carmichael
BBC Reality Check & BBC Monitoring

Published

8 hours ago

Share

Related Topics

• Indian farmers protest 2020

A network of fake social media profiles of people claiming to be Sikhs, and promoting divisive narratives, has been exposed.

A new report shared exclusively with the BBC ahead of its publication on Wednesday identified 80 accounts in the network, which have now been suspended because they were fake.

The influence operation used accounts across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to promote Hindu nationalism and pro-Indian government narratives.

The aim of the network appears to have been to "alter perceptions on important issues around Sikh independence, human rights and values", according to the report's author, Benjamin Strick.

There is no evidence linking this network directly with the Indian government, which has yet to respond to a BBC request for comment.

'Sock puppets'

The network used so-called "sock puppet" accounts, which are fake ones controlled by real people posing as independent individuals, rather than automated "bots".

The fake profiles used Sikh names and claimed to be "Real Sikhs". They used the hashtags #RealSikh to endorse, and #FakeSikh to discredit, different political viewpoints.

The report, from non-profit organisation the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), found many of the accounts in the network used the same fake profiles across several platforms. These accounts shared the same names, profile pictures and cover photos, and published identical posts.

Many of the accounts used profile pictures of celebrities, including actresses in the Punjabi film industry.

IMAGE SOURCE,BENJAMIN STRICK / CIR

Image caption,

The fake accounts used pictures of celebrities and gave them Sikh names

Using a celebrity profile picture does not in itself prove an account is fake. However, the report says that combined with the co-ordinated messaging, frequently used hashtags, similar biography descriptions and follower patterns, the pictures added to the evidence that each of these accounts was not genuine.

The BBC attempted to contact eight of the celebrities whose images had been used, requesting comment. One replied via their management to confirm they were not aware their image had been used in this way, and said they would take action.

The management of another celebrity said there are thousands of such fake accounts associated with their client, and there wasn't much they could do about it.

Political motives

On Friday, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of three controversial farm laws after a year of farmers protesting against them.

The farmers' protests, which started a year ago this week, and the decades-old Khalistan independence movement were the two discussion topics most frequently targeted by the network. According to the report, the accounts sought to label any notion of Sikh independence as extremist, and delegitimise the farmers' protests, claiming they had been hijacked by "Khalistani terrorists".

• Farm laws: India PM Narendra Modi repeals controversial reforms
• The dead professor and the vast pro-India disinformation campaign

But before that, the Indian government had also claimed that the farmers' protest had been "infiltrated by the Khalistanis".

The farmers who continue to protest believe this may have been a deliberate political move.

"We believe these accounts were set up at the behest of the government and it was done to set a narrative against the protests" said Jagjit Singh Dalewal, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, one of about 30 unions sitting in protest.

Some accounts painted diaspora communities in the UK and Canada as harbouring the Khalistani movement.

The accounts had thousands of followers, and posts from the network have been liked and retweeted by real influencers and quoted on news sites.

IMAGE SOURCE,TWITTER

Image caption,

This Tweet from a fake account in the network received nearly 17,000 likes

Impact and influence

Many influence operations fail to get real people to interact with the fake accounts they create. In the case of this network though, the research identified posts which were interacted with and endorsed by the verified accounts of public figures.

The report also identified content from the fake profiles embedded on news blogs and commentary sites.

Experts on influence operations describe this as "amplification", and the more the network receives, the more impact it can have.

The BBC contacted some of the verified accounts which had interacted with posts in the network.

Rouble Nagi, who on Twitter describes herself as a humanitarian and social worker, had responded to one of the fake accounts' tweets with two clapping hands emojis. She said she is "sad that it was a fake account".

Col Rohit Dev, who calls himself a geopolitical military analyst, had responded to one of these accounts' posts with thumbs-up emojis, but told us he did not know the person behind the handle.

Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights activist and editor of technology policy website MediaNama, says that these influence networks target individuals with a particular point of view.

"These 80-odd accounts will not necessarily make something trend, but with consistent posting, they try to discredit a point of view," he said.

"This seems to be a sophisticated approach, and seems to be a part of a larger operation."

IMAGE SOURCE,BENJAMIN STRICK / CIR

Image caption,

This graph shows how the Twitter accounts in the network interacted with each other - the bigger the circle, the more interactions

Very little of the content included text in Punjabi - the biggest language for Sikhs in India - and nearly all the content was in English.

Mr Pahwa points out that there was political activity around the farmer's protests from all sides, with people trying to support and discredit them.

"It's all a part of the game to win the political narrative war."

• Vast pro-Indian 'propaganda' network exposed
• How a fake network pushes pro-China propaganda
• The dead professor and the vast pro-India network

The BBC shared the report with Twitter and Meta - the company which owns Facebook and Instagram - requesting comment.

Twitter suspended the accounts for violating their rules prohibiting "platform manipulation" and fake accounts.

A Twitter spokesperson said: "At this time, there's no evidence of widespread co-ordination, the use of multiple accounts by single people, or other platform manipulation tactics."

Meta also removed the accounts on Facebook and Instagram for violating its "inauthentic behaviour" policies.

A Meta spokesperson said the accounts "misled people about the origin and popularity of their content and used fake accounts to spam people and evade our enforcement".

Is it possible that some of these trolls are sponsored? 

Is the BBC aware of these paid warriors and if not, why not?

Western propaganda has a strategy of playing both sides where they can control the narrative. 

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/congress-to-recruit-5-lakh-social-media-warriors-to-counter-bjp-it-cell-1766687-2021-02-06

 

[S1ngh]

Thanks to Modi as he iis the one who started the troll factory type of work. 

[MisterrSingh]

Fascinating.

I wonder if this discovery can be traced back to undercover Chinese efforts to expose India, because we can be sure that the UK and the U.S. aren't going to expose Indian chalakhiyan even through supposedly independent media investigations.

[dallysingh101]

Waheguru!

Finally! And all these years people have been attacking certain apnay's hawkishness as paranoia. 

It's even much deeper than all this. 

Jago ayeaa!!

[Ranjeet01]

54 minutes ago, MisterrSingh said:

Fascinating.

I wonder if this discovery can be traced back to undercover Chinese efforts to expose India, because we can be sure that the UK and the U.S. aren't going to expose Indian chalakhiyan even through supposedly independent media investigations.

Chanakya is no match for Sun Tzu

[S1ngh]

Interesting that how Indians are getting beaten badly in this cyber game. A bhaiya sitting in front of 50$ computer spending 12 hrs a day trolling sikhs on twitter and facebook. Now multiply that with 10K + 

Same way the indian music industry hire these trolls to fake like their youtube videos. A simpleton cranky singer getting hundred millions view.. yeh right !!.. Indians from India think they are smart but they are plain stupid when they play the game of dishonesty. Nakal maran vasstay vi akkl chahadi ya.

[Premi5]

 

Sikh Farmers, Diaspora Sad But Not Surprised to Learn of Fake Social Media Accounts Against Protests 

Active members of the farmers' protest said they knew social media was being used to target them – and that's why they came up with their own social media strategy. 

2 hours ago | Pawanjot Kaur

In the month of December last year, a young Sikh man, Sukhpreet Singh, had publicly stated how the BJP IT Cell, for which he was working at the time, was running false propaganda against the farmers’ movement and the Sikhs. Following his public statement, he quit the IT cell.

 

Speaking to The Wire, Singh said, “All of this (the findings of the report) is true.”

 

 

When asked if the modus operandi at the BJP IT cell was similar to the one described in the CIR report, Singh said that a majority of the accounts at the BJP IT cell, at the time, were also operated by non-Sikh people pretending to be Sikh. Only a few accounts were operated by Sikhs, he said….

“I can say that the maximum number of accounts with Sikh names, run by the BJP IT at the time, are people who aren’t actually Sikh,” he said….

Harinder Singh, who works with official social media accounts of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, told The Wire that the reason the farmers’ movement needed official social media handles was because they’d noticed such manipulation early on

Full article at

thewire.in/article/politics/sikh-farmers-diaspora-sad-but-not-surprised-to-learn-of-fake-social-media-accounts-against-protests/amp

 

[Jacfsing2]

On 11/24/2021 at 2:21 PM, S1ngh said:

Interesting that how Indians are getting beaten badly in this cyber game. A bhaiya sitting in front of 50$ computer spending 12 hrs a day trolling sikhs on twitter and facebook. Now multiply that with 10K + 

Same way the indian music industry hire these trolls to fake like their youtube videos. A simpleton cranky singer getting hundred millions view.. yeh right !!.. Indians from India think they are smart but they are plain stupid when they play the game of dishonesty. Nakal maran vasstay vi akkl chahadi ya.

I mean they are smart enough to trick the Sikhs in India.