Thread by @shobz

I have been analysing trends for years and have seen a lot of interesting stuff. When it comes to certain hashtags, there is always the presence of our neighbors there.

There are many hashtags where I discovered a heavy influx of our neighbors. How did I find out that they were from there? I am not lazy like some people to only depend on the location data. If people knew how to do their work, they would have known where they are from.

Some users don't share their location nor do their names give any clues from where they are. Those handles are not in the mix.

It takes a bit of effort to discover where they are from so you can get an idea. However, data is more interesting when you are able to visualise it properly.

This is where the network graphs/maps (whatever you call them) come in handy. The interactions are mapped out and you can see who the most influential ones are.

Recently I found a hateful Hashtag which was used by our neighbors to try and push their agenda. It had not received much traction till it got attention from neighboring trolls/sock puppets.

They did their best to try and amplify the Hashtag so that they could fuel the tense situation. This is a reference of one incident which occurred online.

It was a good thing for all of us that it did not catch fire otherwise it would have been a huge issue. The point of all that was to question what outsiders were doing sharing a hateful Hashtag.

There may not have been many tweets but once again that wasn't the point. It was about a failed attempt of outsiders trying to create issues.

The map I worked on showed the interactions (Replies, quotes, mentions etc). Based on what I saw it was clear that the instigators were at the centre of everything.

The colors in the graph/map are an indication of the communities/cliques. If some people knew what they meant, they wouldn't have asked that question.

I have also analysed hashtags on Balochistan, Cpec, Baloch tribal leaders. Some of them had a heavy presence of those people. In fact the Hashtag for Bugti had a lot of support for him.

I am not in denial that the ground reality is different but that's not my domain. My interests are in looking at what is happening online (not offline).

This area requires a lot of research for which I need time and resources. It does not mean we should totally dismiss the fact that there are foreign actors who do their best to meddle.

There are people within who are also the enemy. I totally agree that we need to not let extremists get any space. They did setup hashtags of their own which got support from within their ranks. Those are not what I am talking about.

The reason why I am going into great details is because people have poor comprehension skills and misunderstand everything.

So to reiterate

1) Map was of one example of a malicious trend.
2) Neighbors are always interfering in our important trends but the numbers are not that high
3) It may not have had much of an impact but it could if they had succeeded.

Oh and I stand by what I noticed based on the data I received.