Pakistani Twitterati fuels fake narratives, targets Indian cricketers: Digital Forensics report

ANI

New Delhi, September 12

After Indian cricketer Arshdeep Singh dropped a catch in a crunch India-Pakistan Super-4 stage match of Asia Cup in Dubai, Pakistani Twitterati fuelled wrath against Indian cricketers.

A report by Digital Forensics, Research and Analytical Centre (DFRAC) unveiled a false narrative against India and its cricketers.

The Indian cricket fans were disheartened after India lost to Pakistan. After the match, 23-year-old Indian cricketer Arshdeep Singh was caught in the eye of a storm for dropping the catch of Pakistani batsman Asif Ali.

Soon after, social media exploded with tweets about Singh. Many users trolled him for dropping the catch. A lot of users also called him an ISI agent or a Khalistani.

A tweet by journalist WS Khan read, "Arshdeep is clearly a part of the Pakistan-backed Khalistan movement."

This is not the first time a cricketer faced such a backlash. During the T20 World Cup last year, India lost to Pakistan and similar hate was seen against Virat Kohli, Mohammed Shami and Rohit Sharma.

Shami, too, was called an ISI agent, reported DFRAC.

Hashtag ‘Arshdeep Singh’ began trending post India’s defeat at the Asia Cup with more than 27,000 tweets under his name. Around 4,500 of them were trending with hashtag ‘Khalistani’.

The first tweet on Singh with the word ‘Khalistani’ was traced to have been posted by a Pakistani account ‘@hmudg1997’, reported DFRAC.

When the DFRAC searched for ‘Khalistani’ on Google trends, it showed that the keyword's timeline had started on September 4 and gradually gained momentum the next day.

The users interested in the keyword were mainly from Pakistan. Moreover, the Wikipedia page of Singh was edited on September 4 and the word ‘India’ replaced with ‘Khalistan’ by an anonymous user.  

The IP address from where the page was edited was located in Pakistani Punjab. The Internet service provider was Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, reported DFRAC.

Meanwhile, the Indian government summoned the Wikipedia executives for the spread of misinformation.

The Ministry of Electronics and Technology said, "No intermediary operating in India can permit this type of misinformation."

According to the WordCloud, tweets on Singh used words like ‘Khalistani’, ‘Pakistani’, ‘Gaddar’, ‘Agent’, ‘Deshdrohi’, etc.

Ironically, a large section of Pakistani media houses and journalists criticised India for the hatred spread against Singh on social media.

The DFRAC provided evidence that it was in fact the Pakistani Twitterati that created a false narrative about Indians targeting Singh. The majority of tweets against Singh were put out by Pakistani social media users, according to the DFRAC.

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