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A video reveals a person being carried on a stretcher, his physique lined by a white blanket. All of a sudden, sirens begin wailing and the boys carrying the stretcher flee. 

After a number of moments, the person escapes from the physique bag and runs away.

“Watch how Islamists build narratives. A dead boy suddenly comes alive! As sirens start blaring, the fake dead body also gets up and starts running,” tweeted one X user.

Other Indian accounts falsely claimed Gazans are faking accidents and loss of life with the intention to garner sympathy from the West. 

This video in addition to the caption has been shared hundreds of instances on social media by Indian accounts. 

But by doing a reverse picture search, we are able to hint the clip again to an Arabic information channel. The authentic video was posted in 2020 and was allegedly filmed in Jordan.

According to BOOM, an Indian fact-checking site, a number of Indian X customers have been discovered main this anti-Palestine propaganda marketing campaign.

These so-called ‘disinfluencers’, or influencers who share disinformation, have primarily attacked Palestinians on-line whereas declaring their help for Israel. 

Tensions between Hindus and Muslims in India

But the large query is: why would these Indian accounts even unfold disinformation?

“We’re getting to electoral season in India. There are going to be national elections next year with some local elections coming up,” defined Nicolas Blarel, an skilled on Indian politics and affiliate professor of International relations at Leiden University.

“This is clearly weaponised to mobilise. There are tensions in India between Hindus and Muslims that often rise when we’re getting close to elections.”

A report by Logically Facts, an organisation that specialises in monitoring misinformation, additionally explains that this disinformation marketing campaign comes within the run-up to the Indian elections, which is able to happen within the spring of 2024.

Anti-Muslim sentiment has been on the rise in India since Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BPJ) got here to energy in 2014. 

Regularly accused of stigmatising Muslims, the BJP is staunchly against its pro-Palestine counterpart, the Congress.

According to a report revealed in September by Hindutva Watch, a Washington-based group monitoring assaults on minorities, 255 documented incidents of hate speech incidents concentrating on Muslims have been recorded within the first half of 2023. 

Overwhelmingly, 80% of those occasions occurred in BJP-ruled states and union territories.

Moreover, Nicolas Blarel has seen that India has grown extra fascinated with Israel over the previous many years.

“Supporters of the BJP consider they face similar threats as Israel when it comes to terrorism,” he mentioned.

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The nation has been topic to assaults by what it says are state-supported armed teams in Pakistan. 

Both have fought a collection of wars since 1947, largely over the Kashmir area, which each international locations declare.

While different platforms comparable to Meta have been rethinking the way to counter hate speech and disinformation, X (former Twitter) has been lagging behind. 

Last month, the European Union launched an investigation into X to find out if the platform did not adjust to new EU guidelines by letting graphic unlawful content material and disinformation linked to Hamas’ assault on Israel run rampant.

If discovered responsible, X may face fines of as much as 6% of its world income.

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