New Delhi: Pakistan, referred as young democracy by some, is actually a failed state which hasn’t been able to realize even basic tenets of egalitarianism in over 50 years of its existence. Pakistan government remains a puppet of the powerful and despotic Army, global terrorists take refuge on its soil while non-state actors hold sway in determining nation’s course.
Now, comes the revelation on Pakistan’s dark digital world and the cyber-army which works overtime to spread propaganda and fake narrative against India and Modi government. And, it’s operated by people close to Imran Khan government.
Identified as Team Imran Khan, it is a Twitter army of more than 1,000 volunteers which remain on standby to push any hate campaign or fake propaganda against the Modi government.
Team Imran Khan is run by an infamous couple named Farhan Virk and his wife. Both command a cyber army and have the ability to trend anything or many any hashtag trend nationally.
How Pakistani Twitter propagates hate propaganda
According to a report in Al-Jazeera, Farhan Virk, a known name in Pakistani Twittersphere, used to become hyper-active during India-Pakistan conflicts. Seen as hyper-nationalist, he used to arouse passions and make anti-India narrative float on Twitter while his wife would push fake news against India.
In fact, Virk got an assignment to handle social media related to Pak PM mainly because of anti-India rhetoric.
Virk maintains 2 accounts on Twitter with close to 3 lakh followers. Being a social media influencer, his services have reportedly been availed by some ministers in Imran Khan govt. Virk claims he has trended close to 4,500 hashtags with Team Imran Khan.
How it tried to defame Modi, build fake narrative on Balakot airstrikes
After the terrorists carried out Pulwama attack, resulting in death of 40 brave CRPF jawans, India fired many accusations at Pakistan, blaming it for the dastardly terror attack. As usual, Pakistan denied any role but its cyber-army jumped to Twitter to run fake campaigns while also discrediting India’s accusations of Pakistan’s involvement in attack.
Days after, India bombarded terror training camp in Pakistan’s Balakot, razing the entire structure and killing close to 300 terrorists. But, Team Imran Khan remained unfettered and rather launched online campaign on social media to falsify India’s claims.
Toeing Pakistan govt’s line, it went to spread the word that only a few trees were damaged in the attack and the the Balakot airstrikes was nothing but an election-year political stunt by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
To buttress its claims, it also used statements of Indian politicians who questioned the Balakot strikes and were demanding proof of the same. In fact, report say that Balakot airstrikes was their most challenging as well as enjoyable task as they got chance to peddle fake nationalist hashtags and spew venom against India.
Modus operandi of Pak cyber propaganda machine
For running their fake propaganda, Team Imran Khan uses altered, doctored or photoshopped images of politicians, journalists and other targeted persons. During such times, they unleash a barrage of fake and doctored images that have mostly been inaccurate, unverified and defamatory.
Once Virk finalizes the contours of online campaign, he sends the images and captions to all those Team Imran Khan volunteers via WhatsApp who prepare to launch the hashtag attack. Like a swarm of locusts, they take to Twitter in hordes and keep tweeting fake facts and images until it starts trending.
