'Misinformation, fake news': India calls out Pakistan over false propaganda on social media after Stanford Internet Observatory report

India on Wednesday accused Pakistan of propagating fake news through social media platforms calling it "malicious propaganda, misinformation, #infodemic, fake news."

The Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations tweeted a report by the Stanford Internet Observatory(SIO) which said that Pakistan based Facebook and Instagram accounts leveraged mass reporting to silence critics.

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"On August 31, 2020, Facebook suspended 103 pages, 78 groups, 453 Facebook accounts, and 107 Instagram accounts for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behaviour. As it notes in its takedown report, Facebook attributed this network to individuals in Pakistan," the SIO report said.

The SIO said that it found "the network also had messaging praising the Pakistani military, along with some Indian military fan Pages and groups of unclear purpose. The network appears to have primarily targeted Pakistanis and Indians; posts were in Urdu, Hindi, English, and Punjabi."

The report said that Facebook reported that 70,000 accounts followed at least one of the pages and 1.1 million users belonged to the groups.

"Many pages and groups posted Pakistani nationalist content, praising the Inter-Services intelligence agency and ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party," it said.