Taliban militants advancing in Afghanistan
By Shoaib Taimur
The Afghan conflict has led to more disinformation floating around on social media than actual news. This can be labeled as 5th generation warfare where the narrative is to make Pakistan the scapegoat for the Taliban conflict.
Never mind the fact that the Afghan government did not want to negotiate with the Taliban, nor the fact that people are tired of the extreme corruption ushered in by Karzai and continued by Ghani and his cohorts. It is obvious that the Afghan leadership, warlords, and other elements have gotten used to the billions of dollars poured in by the US, where everyone got a huge cut. Corruption is being attributed as a factor where the Taliban has been easily able to take so many districts without any resistance. People are allegedly tired of the regime due to the extreme corruption there.
The Ghani administration has unleashed massive campaigns against Pakistan to distract itself from its follies. There are whispers that they are more focused on keeping loyal to them instead of fighting the Taliban.
Afghan Twitter has also embraced former Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan and former immigration minister Chris Alexander, whose election manifesto demanded sanctions against Pakistan. It is interesting that this is happening when the US is part of an extended troika including Russia, China, and Pakistan. He is going against the US by appeasing India. Never mind the fact that there is a bigger scandal in Canada, where the graves of indigenous children were discovered but his campaign is against Pakistan. He has nothing better to do except appease the Afghans, who have started changing their DPs to his picture in his honour.
Afghan Twitter’s goal seems to be to give Pakistan a label of terror. On 8 August, at least half of the top hashtags in Afghanistan were against Pakistan, with misleading content which serves a false narrative.
In 2020, there were a handful of disinformation campaigns orchestrated by India and Afghanistan, including the infamous “civil war”, along with anti-state campaigns in favour of BSNs and PTM, etc. Then there was another incident in April where the Indians launched another civil war hashtag during the TLP protests, where their presence was not hidden.
August had barely started and there have already been at least 17 disinformation campaigns against Pakistan already, with the blessings of the two nations. It’s not a coincidence that there has been a sharp rise in the campaigns against Pakistan after Biden’s announcement in April. India has always been playing the spoiler and is afraid of losing its investment in Afghanistan, which is why the disinformation dam has broken.
There is a lot of data that has shown hashtags to have originated in India and Afghanistan. It is easy for the Afghan side to get some hashtags to trend in Pakistan, especially when they have the PTM and support from the SAATH forum. A good example of the Afghan ambassador’s alleged abduction is where anti-state voices were the first ones to break the news, followed by both TOLO News and ANI. It also didn’t take long for anti-Pakistan trends to emerge. Accounts connected to RAW also pushed her medical reports and fake images. At least four hashtags emerged within 24 hours of the incident, including one asking for the embassy to be shut down in Kabul.
The Afghans have been following the PTM playbook where they have flooded social media with photoshopped images and videos which tie the Taliban to Pakistan. The disinformation has been debunked with evidence but that is not enough as there are gullible people who lap it up. There are examples of them photoshopping the Pakistani flag onto pictures, the dated photo of a migrant family which they claimed was of an Afghan family mourning the death of an alleged comedian/warlord or numerous others tying the Taliban to Pakistan.
There is also the case of NYT reporter Carlota Gall who tweeted a picture of a Pakistan Army martyr and claimed he died in Afghanistan, only that it wasn’t true, and he had been martyred in an operation on Pakistani soil a long time earlier. Even if the information has been debunked, it doesn’t matter as the agenda has served its purpose and ordinary people are fooled.
Disinformation warfare is real and needs to be curbed. It will lead to bigger issues in the future if it is not countered. Pakistan needs to act now before it is too late.
The writer is a Data Scientist and Social Media researcher based in Karachi. He is also on Twitter @shobz.
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