Nowadays, it has become very easy to spread misinformation to propagandize against anyone. Such as of a few days back, there was a piece of news circulating on Social Media that a 14-year old Christian girl “Sunita Masih” was being forcefully converted to Islam after being gang-raped in Faisalabad. The whole of Pakistani Social Media seemed sad and shared this news showing their sorrow and anger including many celebrities.
But later it turned out that this alleged report was all fake and was spread deliberately. An autonomous fact inspector “Daily Scoop TV” investigated this report in Faisalabad and even in Sukkur where the respective SSP’s denied any such incident. Then it was tracked that from where this trend originated and was found that the reporting of the Sunita Masih incident initially came from a Pakistani Christian man named Rahat Austin who is recognized to have indulged in spreading misleading information previously as well. Rahat Austin’s tweet was promoted by Indian social media users calling Pakistan unsafe for minorities.
After this false news was spread which was intentionally circulated to portray a false image of Pakistan regarding the minorities, it is very clear that in this digital era it has become very convenient to propagandize against anyone and that not only by rolling out such misinformation directly against anyone but by taking advantage of the sincerity of public by triggering any sensitive element of the society such as this case which was related to minorities of Pakistan.
There should be a strong mechanism of Government itself to check the authenticity and verify any such news circulating on Social Media to prevent the spread of misleading information in the future which may falsely damage the country’s reputation