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Recycle, reuse and issue non-apologies when caught: Fake news toolkit?

Leading Indian news channels have been called out for peddling fake news about Afghanistan for days now

Fake news toolkitImage Courtesy: Twitter

The UK Defence Journal, had to put up an explainer titled “Indian news shares video of Wales claiming it is Afghanistan”. Top of the pack in peddling that fake news was Times Now. The UK Defence Journal, has on its team “defence professionals, cyber security and international relations graduates, serving and former military personnel, industry specialists as well as everyday military and defence enthusiasts”. Above all it has someone with the patience to explain to a Twitter user jumping to the defence of their favourite Indian channel that Wales was not in Afghanistan! 

Apart from a full fledged explainer with geo political details, editor George Allison had to call out Times Now on social media as well.

However it was not just Times Now airing fake news on its channel and amplifying it on social media. Multiple mainstream news media outfits have also shared visuals  of a video game ARMA-3, and claimed that they had access to ‘exclusive’ or ‘live footage’ that supposedly showed Pakistan’s drone attack on Panjshir, Afghanistan, after the Taliban claimed to have captured the area on September 6, 2021. 

Recycling fake news even after its called out

Even after this clip was debunked by fact checkers, another news channel TV9 Bharatvarsh decided to air it again, also claiming it was the visual of a Pakistani attack in Panjshir, Afghanistan. Irony died when, according to fact check news portal Boomlive, the same channel had earlier aired this clip as “military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020”!

Boomlive added that both Republic TV and Hindi News channel Zee Hindustan also ran footage from the video game “Arma-3” as visuals from the ongoing conflict in Panjshir valley. They too claimed that they had the footage that showed “Pakistani airforce attacking the anti-Taliban fighters”. The footage reportedly came from “Hasti TV”. Republic TV in its broadcast claimed, “Pakistan army supporting Taliban against Northern Alliance in Panjshir”, and Boomlive reported that the anchor again repeated that the ‘footage’ shows airstrikes in Panjshir and claimed that it shows Pakistani airstrikes. 

Republic says sorry, not sorry

However after a massive public drubbing, Republic TV was forced to issue a public clarification: “The video in question of ‘Pak Army striking Panjshir’ was taken and credited to Hasti TV – which as per their bio claims to be ‘the only Afghan TV channel in the UK catering to the needs of the Afghan/Persian Diasporas in the UK and rest of the World’. Hasti TV aired the video on their channel and also shared it on social media with the caption which when translated reads, ‘A video that we just received from Panjshir shows that a Pakistani military airplane is flying over Panjshir. Until now, the official sources have not approved this video.’ Multiple media outlets have carried and reported the said video. Since it has been brought to our notice that the video may not be accurate, the erroneous video sourced to Hasti TV has since been deleted from our official handles.”

https://www.facebook.com/RepublicWorld/posts/4521418507971994

 

Even in its clarification, Republic TV has absolved itself of all journalistic responsibility, and put the blame on Hasti TV. Other media outlets, meanwhile, do not seem to have offered any clarification for using those clips yet. Many have had a sprut in their social media activities, thus ensuring that the ‘fake news’ gets buried deep in the timelines.

For instance, Boomlive in its ongoing fact check discovered that Zee Hindustan aired a year old video of a young “girl in a colourful head scarf firing from a machine gun and laughing at the camera claiming it is recent from the ongoing resistance against the Taliban in Panjshir, Afghanistan.” The channel which ran the video as an ‘exclusive’ claimed, “Innocent children in Panjshir have taken up arms against Taliban. The children have picked up weapons to give a befitting reply to Taliban”. Calling her “Panjshir ki maasoom” in the caption, the channel tweeted the video.

India Today’s AFWA 

India Today, meanwhile, chose to quote claims from @Mohsood123, a fake account, now suspended, to ‘report’ that a Pakistani Jet had been shot down in Panjshir. According to the fact check the image itself is three years old and is of a U.S. F-16 fighting falcon crash landing during a training in Arizona. The claim was also fact checked to be fake news by Pakistan’s media group Dawn.

 

Ironically, India Today has a branded fact check system it calls “India Today Anti Fake-news War-room (AFWA)”. In August it factcked a video from Syria that was being shared as a Taliban executing woman in Afghanistan. The video was viral on social media and purportedly showed a woman being “shot in the head by the Taliban in Afghanistan for dressing inappropriately”. India Today then fact checked it and found “that the video is from Syria and more than six years old.”

The fake news spurt has been noticed since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and has had a surge in the past few days. So much so, that the police in Kashmir had to refute “reports” of 60 youth missing from Kashmir valley amid the Afghanistan conflict. The Hindustan Times reported on September 1 that even the Kashmir Zone police called these ‘reports’ fake news.

Related:

EXCLUSIVE: Craig Whitlock exposes the Secret History of the War in Afghanistan
A tribute to Danish Siddiqui (May 19, 1983 – July 16, 2021) 
Rights groups express solidarity with Afghanistan in Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru

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