A recent trend on Twitter “#SanctionPakistan” has been proven to be fake according to Twitter’s terms and conditions. The hashtag was being used to manipulate public opinion by purporting Pakistan’s involvement in the Afghanistan issue. The involved parties came out to be Anti-Pakistan forums and individuals.
A young tweep @meddytweets who, according to his profile, is a Data Scientist and Certified Ethical Hacker has proven the trend fake. According to his analysis, this trend was started by an anti-Pakistan Canadian Politician, Chris Alexander on 1st of August, 2021.
As per the analysis, about 53 thousand Twitter accounts participated in the trend, out of which approximately 13 thousand accounts were created within 5 days after the trend started and 25 thousand of those accounts were created within a month prior to the hashtag #SanctionPakistan started to trend and majority of the tweets with this hashtags were posted from these accounts. These tactics are known as “bot activity”, which proves the majority of participants in this trend were not real people but bots.
Furthermore, 135 verified Twitter accounts also participated in the trend including the founder of Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) Manzoor Pashteen, PTM activist Bushra Gohar, Indian Politcal Party “Bharatiya Janata Party” (BJP) worker Kapil Mishra, and an Indian Journalist Aditya Raj Kaul. Therefore, it was concluded that this trend was not real according to Twitter’s terms and conditions. It was a misinformation campaign propagated through Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement and SAATH Forum with the help of some western accounts.