The upticks in the field of technology and digitalization have granted a plethora of opportunities for all users to access the Internet and share whatever information, content & opinion on significant issues on social media platforms. Recently, we have stumbled upon one such user who has been found sharing misinformation and religious antipathy using social media platform X as a tool of propaganda.

Who is Ashok Srivastav

Fake news and Misinformation

Habitual offender: Religious Antipathy on X

Incendiary and Provocative Content, derogatory terms on X

Condemns Fake news narratives emerged as a fake news peddler on X

Conclusion

Who is Ashok Shrivastav?

He is a Journalist and anchor on the DD news program Do Tuk, moreover a senior consulting editor on DD news. He joined X in 2012. Hitherto, he holds 279.9k followers. He has become active on X these days. He has around 64. 3 K posts till now.

Additionally, he is the author of two books Modi Versus Khan Market Gang and Modi Censored. On a related note, he runs a blog in which he expresses his views on significant issues of society. In our probe, he has been found spreading misinformation and hatred on X(formerly Twitter).

Fake news and Misinformation

Misinformation 1

In September 2021, Ashok Srivastav reposted a viral screenshot of CNN’s article claiming that the Taliban had banned sanitary napkins in Afghanistan, as it is against Sharia law.

Fact-Check

A deliberate examination of this viral claim revealed that it was fake. The image seen in the viral screenshot was initially used by Jansatta in 2016. Later, it was used by India.com in 2017. Moreover, we closely inspected the screenshot and found that the headlines had been copied and pasted from some other article of CNN.
Analysis: Fake

Misinformation 2

On August 2023, a video of a court hearing showed Senior advocate Kapil Sibal arguing the case related to the removal of Article 370 in the court on behalf of petitioner National Conference leader Akbar Lone was shared by Ashok Srivastav on X. While sharing this video, he wrote: “Amidst the news of #Noconfidencemotion dangerous news has escaped people’s attention. Congress leader Kapil Sibal has demanded a referendum in the Supreme Court in #Kashmir. This is what Pakistan does. These are the leaders of INDIA who are pleading for Pakistan in the Supreme Court of India.”

Fact-Check

It suggested that Kapil Sibal is being called a ‘Congressman’ in this viral video. To begin our fact-check process, we searched for keywords on Google and came across media reports by TOl and The Hindu from May 2022. According to these reports, Kapil Sibal left the Congress and contested the Rajya Sabha elections as an independent candidate from Uttar Pradesh with the support of the SP. Subsequently, we went to the official website of the Rajya Sabha and collected information about Kapil Sibal. According to the information on the website, ‘Independent & Others’ has been mentioned in the category of Sibal’s Party name.

Furthermore, we did not find any recent media report that stated that Kapil Sibal had joined Congress again at the time of writing this fact-check 

Analysis: Misleading

Misinformation 3

Ashok Shrivastav as an anchor, broke the news about Assam being described as a part of Myanmar during the ongoing hearing on Section 6A of the Citizenship Act 1955 in the SC. In this breaking news, he addressed the senior Supreme Court advocate Kapil Sibal as a ‘Congress leader’.

Additionally, a breaking news clip was posted in December 2023 from the account of Doordarshan Hindi and it was written, “Big news: To what extent will the Congress party go in appeasement? Congress leader Kapil Sibal described Assam as a part of Myanmar in the Supreme Court, see the whole matter in the video?”

Fact-Check

In the probe, we found that the DFRAC team had fact-checked this claim earlier. As per reports, Kapil Sibal left Congress and contested Rajya Sabha elections as an independent candidate from Uttar Pradesh with the support of SP. On a related note, a visit to the official website of Rajya Sabha revealed that the name of Sibal’s party had been stated as “Independent and Others”

No more information has been found citing that Kapil Sibal joined Congress while writing this fact-check
Analysis: Misleading

Misinformation 4

In 2022, an image depicting two men holding up a banner that reads: Please do not pray outside the mosque on the road” was shared by him on X. While sharing this image, Srivastav wrote: “In Agra, the police filed an FIR against 150 people who offered namaz on the road without permission, after which banners were put up in the mosque in Meerut asking people not to offer namaz on the road. If the law is strictly followed, the lawbreakers will reform themselves, #Yogi ji’s UP is setting an example of this.”

Fact-Check

A reverse-image search of the above-shared image led us to an Aug 2019 tweet by Meerut Police featuring the same image with the caption: “Imam Haji Akhtar put up banners at the mosque with Patel Mandap“(Translated from Hindi).  Further, a report by Navbharat Times dated Aug 16, 2019, carrying this image stated that it was an initiative of Meerut Police so that traffic is not affected during Friday prayers. Moreover, the Intezamia Committee in some mosques, in cooperation with the administration, has even hung banners appealing to the Namazis not to offer Namaz on the road.

Whereas in Agra’s case, around 150 People were apprehended by the Police for offering namaz on roads without permission as Yogi Adityanath had banned religious programmes on Roads
Analysis: The shared image is unrelated to the Agra case. Hence, the claim made by Ashok Srivastav is misleading.

Misinformation 5

When the protests against the Citizenship Act 2019 turned violent, in December 2019, Ashok Shrivastav shared a screenshot of a BBC Hindi Tweet on X that read:” Lucknow: Driver kept explaining that the van was NDTV’s but the hooligan did not listen and set the van on fire.“ (Translated from English). Additionally, he wrote: “You make a rioter a hero and someday your own will also burn. These are rioters, they are not someone’s father”

“Troubled Indori ji has sent a couplet for @ndtv.
Citizenship Act 2019 turned violent on December 19, 201

Fact-Check

Upon reverse-searching the screenshot of BBC’s Hindi tweet, we found that Editor Mukesh Sharma from BBC Hindi called this screenshot “fake”. He wrote: “It’s a fake tweet. @BBCHindi hasn’t tweeted any such thing.” Moreover, an NDTV Journalist asserted that the NDTV van was not torched though it was damaged by the protesters.

Analysis: Fake. The Screenshot of the BBC Hindi Tweet was completely fake.

Misinformation 6

Sharing a video on X, Ashok Shrivastav claimed: “Muslims protesting in Chicago USA, not to buy groceries from Hindu stores which are run by Patels. Because they are funding RSS”

Fact-Check

DFRAC found a tweet by Muslim Mirror dated June 19, 2022, with the caption: “Protest held outside Indian consulate in Chicago over remarks on Prophet Muhammad. The tweet featured an image depicting a person donned in white clothes which can be seen in the viral video as well. Further, we also found a report by Muslim Mirror from June 2022, stating that protests were held by Muslim groups outside the Indian consulate in Chicago, US against insulting remarks on Prophet Muhammad.

Analysis: The video is from 2022. Hence, Muslims in Chicago, US are not protesting against Hindus

Critical offender: Religious Anitpathy on X

In a thorough investigation, Ashok Shrivastav has been discovered posting content which promotes and disseminates religious antipathy and resentment on X. Numerous tweets done by him in the past, have come to light in the brief examination of his X handle. Through these tweets, he has posed a scathing attack on Christianity. By highlighting the crimes and false deeds of some missionaries, he has tried to deteriorate the reputation of all the Christian organisations and missionaries across the country.

Incendiary and Provocative content, using derogatory terms

Journalist Ashok Shrivastav as an X user, has been found sharing this incendiary and provocative content that holds the potency to create tension, disturb communal harmony, and create division in society,  Moreover, a subsequent probe into his handle foregrounds that he has used derogatory terms on a recurrent basis. A collage showcasing the snippets of his tweets is given below.

In this tweet, Ashok Shrivastava claimed: “Nitish ji is ready to make Bihar a Muslim state. The Bihar government has released a new calendar of holidays and appeasement in Urdu schools. Holidays of other important festivals like Makar Sankranti, Maha Shivratri, Ram Navami, Rakshabandhan, and Bhai Dooj, the biggest festival of Hindus, have been cancelled… Urdu schools will have holidays on Friday. This means that now the agenda and holidays of Urdu schools will be different from other schools. New ground for separatism is being prepared” but the reality is completely different. In our probe, we found that the Bihar Education Department has released two separate holiday lists for general schools and Urdu schools. These holidays are only for Urdu schools. In general schools, there is only one day holiday on all three days. That is, the holidays of Eid and Bakrid have not been extended in general schools.


Interestingly, we have shared some excerpts of his tweets in our exclusive report. However, there are numerous tweets available on this X handle which is impossible to cover in a single report.

Condemns Fake news narratives emerged as a fake news peddler on X

Notably, Ashok Shrivastava keeps talking about fake news narratives in the mainstream media. He has visited various digital media platforms and journalism institutions where delivered lectures on exposing the net of fake news narratives and misinformation but he has been observed spreading fake news and misinformation multiple times using his X’s handle.

Conclusion

 In this exclusive report, we have provided a brief analysis of the X handle of Journalist Ashok Shrivastav which features Misinformation, fake news and religious resentment on social media. It is imperative to take this seriously, especially in an era where thousands of people rely on social media for trustworthy and precise information