So the media is always in a constant battle of spreading fake news and propaganda and well what option do they have,the people of India love propaganda so much and rightly so, Indians are among the most misinformed people especially due to sporadic misinformation and fake news shared on WhatsApp and through the famous media agencies in the country. Moreover, EU Disinfo Lab, which is an NGO focused on researching and tackling sophisticated disinformation campaigns, have a network of 265 coordinated fake local media outlets connected with spreading misinformation against Pakistan and Muslims around the world.
This network is managed by an Indian influence network, and is found to be spread in more than 65 countries to serve the Indian government’s interests. It is aimed at influencing the European Union and the United Nations by sharing anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim content.
The findings of the investigation are found to be:
- Influence international institutions with coverage of specific events and demonstrations;
- Provide NGOs with useful press material to reinforce their credibility and thus be impactful;
- Add several layers of media outlets that quote and republish one another, making it harder for the reader to trace the manipulation, and in turn, offer a “mirage” of international support;
- Influence public perceptions on Pakistan by multiplying iterations of the same content available on search engines.
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It is interesting to note here, that stakeholders involved in managing EP Today have been found to have a large network of think tanks, NGOs, and companies from the Srivastava Group, which hosts notorious media outlets like New Delhi Times and International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies (IINS). All of these media networks are all based in New Delhi, which highlights why 27 controversial EU MPs visited the Indian Occupied Kashmir and met with PM Narendra Modi on the invitation of IINS.
On top of that, the investigations moved to Times of Geneva which uses the same modus operandi by producing the same anti-Pakistan content which includes videos covering controversial events to justify Indian atrocities in the state of Kashmir which has been in constant struggle of freedom for so many years now. Such propaganda is only lighting up the fire and not pushing it down by any means. Furthermore,
NGOs and think tanks such as the Pakistani Women’s Human Rights Organization and the European Organization for Pakistani Minorities (EOPM) are found to have strong ties with these networks, either with their, staff publishing content for EP Today or the websites hosted on the servers of one of these groups.
In addition to things,the investigators have also proved the connection between Geneva and Brussels influence groups which lobby in the EU and UN respectivelyby discovering the link between website registration addresses, email addresses, and domain names. Another similar network of 265 resurrected media outlets spoofing real media outlets or extinct websites working on a similar agenda has also been uncovered.
