In the wake of Operation Sindoor, India’s cross-border counterstrike following the Pahalgam terror attack, government fact-checking units swung into high alert to highlight and debunk misleading information on social and mainstream media and set the record straight.
Their job multiplied as social media channels were flooded with unverified images of troop movements, doctored videos claiming to show missile launches, and misleading news about diplomatic escalations.
“A barrage of coordinated disinformation has been carried out by certain social media handles in general and mainstream media in particular in Pakistan with the sole objective to instil fear among the Indian masses,” the Press Information Bureau (PIB) said in a statement. “This psychological warfare has been actively debunked by the Press Information Bureau for the last few weeks. In addition, Indian media and social media users have been falling for misinformation. The fact-check unit of PIB put the record straight and debunked misinformation, disinformation and outright lies.”
PIB said a video of a drone attack in Jalandhar was widely circulated to create panic. The PIB found that it was an unrelated video of a farm fire.
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