The India-Pakistan Conflict Was a Parade of Lies

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

The India-Pakistan Conflict Was a Parade of Lies

The internet contributed to the culture of mendacity in a fight between nuclear neighbors.

By Farhad Manjoo
Opinion Columnist

March 6, 2019

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In retaliation for a terrorist attack against Indian troops last month, India conducted airstrikes against Pakistan. After I learned about them, I tried to follow the currents of misinformation in the unfolding conflict between two nuclear-armed nations on the brink of hot war.

What I found was alarming; it should terrify the world, not just Indians and Pakistanis. Whether you got your news from outlets based in India or Pakistan during the conflict, you would have struggled to find your way through a miasma of lies. The lies flitted across all media: there was lying on Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp; there was lying on TV; there were lies from politicians; there were lies from citizens.

Besides outright lies, just about everyone, including many journalists, played fast and loose with facts. Many discussions were tinged with rumor and supposition. Pictures were doctored, doctored pictures were shared and aired, and real pictures were dismissed as doctored. Many of the lies were directed and weren’t innocent slip-ups in the fog of war but efforts to discredit the enemy, to boost nationalistic pride, to shame anyone who failed to toe a jingoistic line. The lies fit a pattern, clamoring for war, and on both sides they suggested a society that had slipped the bonds of rationality and fallen completely to the post-fact order.

The lies began immediately after Indian forces attacked what they described as a terrorist training camp in a Pakistani town called Balakot. The Indian government offered no visual proof of the effectiveness of its strikes, and there is still debate among Indian politicians about what was hit. Pakistan’s military quickly put out pictures from Balakot showing not much damage.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/opinion/india-pakistan-news.html

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Also: Satellite images show buildings still standing at Indian bombing site (Reuters)

[Perrenial Voter]

1. I've observed the same thing happening in Syria, which

I tried to follow for awhile using eye-witness sources. I developed a method for this monitoring the Green Movement in Iran on twitter; I watched all the chatter for a few days until I determined who were actual eyewitnesses and reliable and I then just followed them. But then there were agreed upon facts observed by journalists. And all of those sources went silent after a few months.

In Syria there are no uncontested facts and there is disinformation from multiple sides. There are false flag attacks, fake human rights organizations, fake news organizations, etc. I tried to use forensic analysis to determine the reliability of photos but every source but AP stripped out the metadata to prevent that. I did find, however, that a number of photographs issued by one of the opposition media groups were several years old and were of the Gaza Strip and West Bank and not of Syria. I finally gave up and realized that we need some kind kind of neutral institution with adequate resources to analyze these materials using multiple methods.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

2. This is what we've been warned about.

Doctored photographs. Photo-shopped images.

False information/lies/rumors/gossip masquerading as truth.

It is going to become harder and harder to get actual news. Actual truth. Facts.

The future is going to be scary.