An important meeting of the G-20 Tourism Working Group is being held in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, where the delegation of G-20 countries are participating. Srinagar has been decorated and decked out for the event, as it is all set to welcome foreign guests. Adequate security arrangements have also been made there because it is the first major international event organized in the region after the abrogation of the special status of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019.
Pakistani users have run many such hashtags on social media, which are targeting the G-20 meeting. In media reports, intelligence agencies have been told that more than 100 fake hashtags were used in Kashmir by Pakistan regarding the G-20 meeting. The purpose of this hashtag is to spread disinformation about the G-20 Working Group Sri Nagar Meeting.
In this special report, DFRAC has analyzed the misinformation, propaganda and misleading news being circulated on social media regarding the G-20 meeting.
Boycott G-20 Impact:
After data analysis, DFRAC found that the keyword ‘Boycott G-20’ has been shared in more than 2100 posts on Twitter, which has been posted by more than 1800 users. These posts have been viewed by over 36.6 million users. The data analysis can be seen in the chart given here.
Timeline Of Tweets:
Here is the timeline of tweet creation, in which it can be seen that the maximum number of tweets were made on 19th May. More than 2800 tweets were done on 19th May.
WordCloud:
Here is a wordcloud showing the most frequently used words in Twitter posts.
It is being said by several media reports that the protest on social media can be done with the aim of harming the interests of India, in which misleading information about the G-20 meeting is being shared. Many hashtags have also been used for this. One of these hashtags is #G20IgnoringHRViolationInIIOJK. There were 2,110 tweets on Twitter with this hashtag which has been viewed by over 3.3 million people.
In the chart below one can see that the hashtag started on May 18 and peaked on May 19 with over 1,870 tweets. After this, till May 20, there were about 200 tweets on the hashtag.
Accounts Tweeting On The Hashtag:
Around 620 accounts have tweeted/retweeted the hashtag #G20IgnoringHRViolationInIIOJK. @AiniKhann has tweeted the hashtag more than 210 times, followed by @Sady_khan69‘s account with almost 160 tweets. @Sady_khan69‘s account has been banned in India. @MArifKhan61 has tweeted the hashtag 132 times, followed by @AhmedKhan406 with 108 tweets.
WordCloud:
Here’s a WordCloud showing the most frequently used words in Twitter posts with the hashtag #G20IgnoringHRViolationInIIOJK. This WordCloud shows the most frequently used word types in tweets containing #G20IgnoringHRViolationInIIOJK. The words ‘IIOJK’, ‘violation’, ‘abuse’, ‘illegal’ etc. were prominently used.
Copy Paste Pattern:
On analyzing the hashtags, it was revealed that several accounts were copy-pasting tweets to amplify the #G20IgnoringHRViolationInIIOJK hashtag on Twitter.
Propaganda Of Pakistani Media:
Concept TV News has made a tweet regarding G-20. They tagged this tweet to Qamar Zaman Kaira, the advisor on Kashmir Affairs to the Pakistani Prime Minister. The tweet states, “India is trying to crush the desire of freedom of Kashmiris in Occupied Kashmir and has been using every trick of repression and cruelty for 7 decades to suppress the feeling of freedom of Kashmiris.” (English trans.)
Source: Twitter
In the tweet of Concept TV, facts are less visible as compared to propaganda. Kashmiri youth are climbing the ladder of success in India. While Umran Malik, Waseem Bashir, Abid Mushtaq, Mujtaba Yusuf, Umar Nazir and Samiullah Dar have made their name famous in cricket from Kashmir, Shah Faesal and Athar Aamir Khan have topped the administrative services on the basis of their talent.
Pakistani Users Spread Fake News Regarding G-20:
Pakistani users spread a lot of fake news regarding the G-20 meeting. Pakistani users were trying to prove by sharing fake and misleading pictures that heavy police force and army personnel have been deployed in Kashmir for the G-20 meeting, who are arresting the youth of Kashmir. Here we are doing a fact check of some fake and misleading pictures.
Fake/Misleading Information #1
A user named Khadim Savarya on Twitter. According to his bio, he hails from Mirpur district of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and is the Additional General Secretary of the Pakistan People’s Party. He has shared 4 photos on Twitter, in which two photos show the deployment of a large number of police forces.
Source: Twitter
Fact Check:
The DFRAC team did a reverse search to investigate the first photo of the deployment of the police force. In this context, we found a report by thekashmirwalla.com. This report, published on February 15, 2020, has used the same image shared by Khadim Savarya.
Source : thekashmirwalla
On the other hand, a reverse search to investigate the second photo revealed that this photo is not of the present, but 5 years old, from 2018. This photo was published by ‘The Indian Express’ in a report on 20 July 2018.
Source: The Indian Express
Hence, It is clear from this fact check that the claim of Khadim Savarya is false.
Fake/Misleading Information #2
A user named Wotse claimed that Indian military forces have cordoned off the Kashmir region and young people are being picked up. Over 700 people have been evacuated so far from the downtown area of Srinagar this evening.
Source: Twitter
Fact Check:
The DFRAC team searched some keywords on Google to verify this claim. We could not find any news published in this context by any reliable media outlet. Hence, the claim of social media users is Misleading.
CONCLUSION:
Kashmir is called the paradise on the earth. The Mughal emperor Jahangir had said on Kashmir – “Gar Firdaus bar-roo-e-zameen ast hamin ast o hamin ast o hamin ast” which translated in Hindi means- “If there is heaven on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here”. It is because of this beauty that Kashmir is also considered a major center of tourism.
The Government of India has tried to give a new direction to Kashmir by holding a meeting of the G-20 Tourism Working Group, but Pakistan is not only trying to harm Indian interests with its propaganda, but also working against the development and promotion of tourism in Kashmir.
