After the start of Gaza conflict with Israel, more anti-Palestinian and anti-Islam fake information is being spread on social media from the neighboring country India. Especially on Elon Musk’s ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) there is a lot of false information being spread – about child abductions by Hamas, the beheading of an Israeli teenager in the back of a truck, and that Hamas is waging psychological warfare against the US military. And verified accounts are being used to spread these false information.
Numerous Indian verified accounts have been provided by BOOM, one of India’s fact-checking agencies. Similarly, according to a report by the Australian-based Islamic Council of Victoria, most of the anti-Islamic tweets have been identified as coming from India. According to the report, Islamophobia has come to the fore in the plight of Palestinians and is increasingly visible on social media. These hateful statements are being propagated online by ‘BJP’s IT Cell’. Hate speech has been propagated from this cell before.
Additionally, BOOM’s research shows that most of those who operate accounts that spread fake information about Hamas are associated with radical Hindutva organizations. Among them, the fake video of X-linked Palestinian fighters abducting young women to be sex slaves has been viewed by almost 6 million users. Analysis showed that most of the accounts from which these videos were shared or those who viewed them were Indian citizens. This video was even shared on Telegram channel called ‘Angry Saffron’ or ‘OSINT’. These channels are also being operated from India.
A fact-checked BOOM research report says that 7 of the top 10 fake videos on social media are from India-based accounts. Many of these users have the Indian flag as their profile picture.
These 7 videos have been viewed by more than 3 million users on social media X. This video was captured last September. No such abductions have taken place in Gaza at all. According to sources, the video was also shared on Angry Saffron’s Telegram channel. It is an apparent open-source intelligence or OSINT channel, operated from India.