Pakistani angle in the Prophet controversy, social media handles spread the most fake news

Delhi: Most of the fake news was spread from Pakistani social media handles in the controversial religious remarks case of former Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma. This has been claimed in a report by the Center for Digital Forensic Research and Analytics. Due to Sharma's statement, there was a lot of protest in many parts of India.

Several misinformation campaigns were launched against India over the remarks. A major source of these operations is Pakistan. In its report, it has identified specific handles and Twitter hashtags in this regard.

The report claimed that many social media users spread fake news by sharing fake screenshots during this period. One of the most viral posts was the claim that English cricketer Moeen Munir Ali has appealed for a boycott of the Indian Premier League. He has also demanded an apology from him. However this claim was false.

It was also claimed that the Grand Mufti of Oman Sheikh Ahmed bin Hamad Al-Khalil has announced a boycott of Indian products, while in fact he criticized Nupur Sharma's remarks.

Detection of users of trending hashtags

During the controversy, profiles of those interacting with the hashtags trending on Twitter were scrutinized. In this it was found that more than 7,000 accounts were from Pakistan. About 3,000 users were from Saudi Arabia, 2,500 were from India, 1,400 were from Egypt and over 1,000 were from the US and Kuwait.