It’s actually not a targeted crackdown. This was an influence operation being tested.
The #Indian government has done this before taking down ~100 handles due to pro-#Kashmir tweeting.
This time they went after much bigger & well-known accounts that embarrassed @narendramodi.
Look at the facts on ground:
A reporter, that has never done a #NationalSecurity story, writing about a very technical national security topic.
Working for a newspaper that has a total readership of 1.3 million, who has never published anything of this level before.
The reporter, who tweets every article she writes, somehow missed tweeting this one? As a matter of fact, she tweeted nothing during those days.
But a highly questionable website based in Hyderabad gets credit for the #SOCINT, as they called it, of tracing all of these accounts?
How do the company in Hyderabad & the journalist know each other?
Again, her entire journalism career has never had a story about this topic or discussing social media intelligence, so what’s the connection?
It should also be clear the same website, on 1 March, posted an article declaring the #Indian #BalakotAirStrike to be a failure, likely based on the same #SOCINT “intelligence” that identified the handles, not some great investigation.
greatgameindia.com/forensic-satel…
This same website also celebrated when different twitter handles were suspended, declaring that the #Pakistani “Influence Operation,” run from @commandeleven, a “#PakArmy propaganda outfit.”
A few times, the same website claimed/celebrated that the entire influence (disinformation) network was being dismantled by the “#Indian” military.
Here’s what happened.
Planted article, written by a ghost writer, with a byline added by a newspaper.
Conspiracy theory website picks up the story, tweets it with inflammatory language, drives people to report the handles for suspension.
A week later, another unknown Indian website loads the #OSINT analysts on social media violated #India’s national security story.
And a new article appears on the questionable website claiming a #Pakistani disinformation campaign against #India, without names or handles.
Why did no major news outlet in #India run this story? If these @Twitter handles violated #Indian law & national security, why was the propaganda crazy Indian media quiet?
Why did not one channel beat #Pakistan over the head with this?
Maybe because it wasn’t really a story.
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