Social media plot to malign farmers’ protest uncovered; fake accounts suspended
A recent report by a British non-profit working on uncovering the malicious use of social media to target people, especially minorities, on a large scale by those in power has revealed that there was a large-scale concerted effort through fake social media accounts, most of which were human-operated, to discredit the year-long farmers’ movement on the borders of Delhi by linking it to Khalistani separatism.
Ever since the farmers’ protest against the three controversial agricultural laws, popularly known as the ‘farm laws’, began, there were constant efforts to malign them—by linking the protest to the banned Khalistani movement, and thus bringing the resultant ramifications of terrorism and separatism, and delegitimising the movement.
Now, the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), a British non-profit that previously uncovered crimes against humanity in Myanmar as well as Chinese propaganda from fake social media handles, has exposed a coordinated plot to link the protesting farmers to Khalistanis through inauthentic social media posts.
The report, titled ‘Analysis of the #RealSikh Influence Operation’, published online on Wednesday, November 24, found propaganda conducted by a network of 80 fake social media accounts.
After the BBC shared the report—which was shared exclusively with the BBC by CIR ahead of its publication—with Twitter and Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), the latter two suspended the accounts for violating rules prohibiting “platform manipulation” and fake accounts (in the case of Twitter), and “inauthentic behaviour” policies (in the case of Meta), reported the BBC.
“In the content produced by the fake network, many of the memes and text are promoting the narrative that the Khalistani movement was ‘trying to hijack the farmers protest’ which is an attempt to delegitimise the farmers movement and shift the debate away from the farmer laws and into what the accounts claim is an issue about ‘terrorism’ and ‘Khalistan’,” according to the report.
That it was indeed a well-coordinated and well-participated operation is also obvious from the fact that the fake accounts were mostly ‘human-operated’, and not automated, as is often the case in such large-scale maligning operations.
“The fake accounts do not show signs of automation, but rather appear to be human-operated, acting as ‘sock puppet’ accounts with the same personas replicated over multiple platforms and repeating the same content,” the report says.
It was a ‘coordinated influence operation’ on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using fake personas acting as influencers within the Sikh community to discredit the farmer movement.
In a section titled ‘Implications for India’s political and social cohesion’, the report says: “Continuation or expansion of the network’s activity therefore risks reducing cohesion within the Sikh community.”
Also, “[t]he network’s advocacy that supporters of Sikh independence are extremist or terrorist, and that Indian nationalists must take action against them, may contribute to an environment in which some actors consider intimidation of, or violence towards, the Sikh community as legitimate.”
Several BJP politicians, including Union and state ministers, too have described the farmers opposing the three new laws as Khalistani terrorists and Maoists backed by Pakistan and China.
The CIR added:”‘The core of the network are accounts positioning themselves as true Sikhs, whilst their content is amplified by accounts self-identifying as Indian nationalists. This suggests the influence operation may be targeting audiences within both Sikh and Hindu communities. The profiles of the fake accounts, their adoption of common Sikh names, their use of similar if not identical spam hashtags and content, and our analysis of their interactions with other Twitter users, suggests their activity is coordinated.”
Among the hashtags used were #Khalistanis, #RealSikhsAgainstKhalistan, #SikhsRejectKhalistan and #ShameOnKhalistanis.
Commenting on the report, CIR’s co-founder and Executive Director Adam Rutland, said:
“Today’s report clearly shows concerning indications of information warfare against minorities in India. … We will continue to hold a mirror up to governments and organisations who may seek to manipulate social media platforms to distort the picture of what is truly going on in their countries.”
