While in this pandemic everyone’s life is disrupted, the misinformation machinery has not stopped. We came across one Disinfo network, which is busy in incessant mis-info campaign.
A Thread.
(We have updated our story; here is the updated thread)
thedisinfolab.org
A Thread.
(We have updated our story; here is the updated thread)
thedisinfolab.org
Mushrooming so called ‘online-news platforms’ have become the preferred tools for dis-information in recent times. All it takes is to register a website, copy paste content from other platforms, and hire some handles to promote. One such news site is NewsComWorld (sic). 2/n
The Methodology was simple: copy content from a mainstream media & then re-publish by tweaking it's content to give it another interpretation. Ex: A news that US Navy seized Chinese Arms ‘called out China’ for promoting terrorism. But original story didn't mention China as origin
This so called news website (Newscomworld.com) was registered anonymously, in may 2020. The social media handles for this platform however was borrowed from another similar news site Communique_news, now defunct. (4/n)
As noted the FB page and twitter handle were renamed from Communique News, as is shown in the FB page Transparency. Likewise, the first tweet dates BEFORE even the site was launched, meaning it was renamed from (@communique_news) (5/n)
One of the first person to propagate this news site was SanjeevM who also renamed as @IndiaKaPrahari. (6/n)
In a nutshell: the Twitter handle of @NewsComWorld was renamed from @Communique_news; and the name of owner was changed from @Sanjeev40330782 to @IndiaKaPrahari (7/n)
However, once website is in place, it needs to be popular and credible. Adopting the same methodology that several news sites have used, this site also deployed set fake handles to push its stories. A list of some of the handles identified so far are as below: (8/n)
The network of the #fake handles used to push the articles of this website, were created between Dec 2020 and Jan 2021. They pushed the narrative in almost bot-like coordination. Their Tweet timings peaked around mid-day, and Sundays saw very little action. (9/n)
The accounts are a perfect example of copypasta, if there was one. Not only the links and pics they use are identical but also the content they write is almost identical. A collage of word-cloud of different handles looks like mirror image of each other. (10/n)
While most of the handles’ post in identical manner occasionally one odd would also push a fake news, may be just to draw home the point that they r not Bots. For example, one of the handles (@Sumira_Bashir) used a 2016 Deccan Herald pic to push a ‘New-Age Kashmir’ narrative
11/n
11/n
While most of the news items they have been using r from main-stream media, but on the side they have been trying to mainstream the bogus news-site which has been pushing misinformation. (12/n)
There is an age-old saying, that the smartest of your enemies can’t harm you as much as a stupid friend. With such ‘Praharis’, ostensibly working to safeguard India’s interest, we may not need enemies anyways. (13/13)
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