The news reports chronicled India’s overwhelming successes: Indian attacks had struck a Pakistani nuclear base, downed two Pakistani fighter jets and blasted part of Pakistan’s Karachi port, the country’s oil and trade lifeline.
Each piece of information was highly specific, but none of it was true.
Disinformation on social media in the days during and since India and Pakistan’s intense military confrontation last week has been overwhelming. Sifting fact from fiction has been nearly impossible on both sides of the border because of the sheer volume of falsehoods, half-truths, memes, misleading video footage and speeches manipulated by artificial intelligence.
But some of that flood also made its way into the mainstream media, a development that alarmed analysts monitoring the evolution of outlets in India once trusted for their independence. The race to break news and a jingoistic approach to reporting reached a fever pitch during the four-day conflict, as anchors and commentators became cheerleaders for war between two nuclear-armed states. Some well-known TV networks aired unverified information or even fabricated stories amid the burst of nationalistic fervor.
And news outlets reported on a supposed strike on a Pakistani nuclear base that was rumored to have caused radiation leaks. They shared detailed maps that purported to show where the strikes had been. But there was no evidence to uphold these claims. The story of the Indian Navy attacking Karachi was also widely circulated. It has since been discredited.
“When we think of misinformation, we think of anonymous people, of bots online, where you never know what the source of the thing is,” said Sumitra Badrinathan, an assistant professor of political science at American University who studies misinformation in South Asia. Social media platforms were also rife with misinformation during India’s 2019 conflict with Pakistan, but what was notable this time, Dr. Badrinathan said, was that “previously credible journalists and major media news outlets ran straight-up fabricated stories.”
“When previously trusted sources become disinformation outlets, it’s a really large problem,” she said.
The misinformation shared on mainstream media platforms about the conflict between India and Pakistan is the latest blow to what was once a vibrant journalism scene in India.
Warring sides have spread lies and propaganda for as long as there has been armed conflict. And mainstream news outlets have not been immune from presenting their countries’ battlefield efforts in a favorable light or from, at times, rushing to publish information that later turns out to be incorrect.
But social media has exponentially increased the potential for misinformation. And in India, there has been a steady erosion of free speech since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. Many news outlets have been pressured into suppressing news damaging to the government’s reputation. Others, including many big television networks, have come to promote the government’s policies. (Some small independent online news publications have pursued more accountable journalism, but their reach is limited.)
One of India’s most prominent journalists and an anchor at the India Today television channel, Rajdeep Sardesai, apologized on air to viewers last week for running reports about Pakistani jets being shot down, news that had not been “proven at the moment,” he said.
On his YouTube video blog on Saturday, he again apologized, saying that some of the falsehoods were part of a deliberate campaign by the “right-wing disinformation machine under the guise of national interest,” and that 24-hour news channels can sometimes fall into the trap.
Disinformation — information spread with malicious intent — is “designed to incite, sometimes to conceal as well, but predominantly to escalate emotions in content that’s very engagement friendly,” said Daniel Silverman, an assistant professor of political science at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied the subject. In the context of India and Pakistan, audiences are already primed to embrace and spread any falsehoods, given the two countries’ historical enmity, Dr. Silverman said.
In India, an independent fact-checking website called Alt News that is dedicated to weeding out misinformation on social media and mainstream media has provided evidence of numerous fabrications aired by TV outlets, including prominent national channels like Aaj Tak and News18.
“The information ecosystem is broken,” said Pratik Sinha, a founder of Alt News. Fact-checking can combat misinformation, Mr. Sinha said, but it has a cost: Alt News is fighting a defamation suit filed by another media outlet. Its reporters have also been harassed.
More than 200 million Indian households own a television set, and around 450 private TV stations are dedicated to news, according to Reporters Without Borders, making television a major source of information in India.
Last week, several well-known TV stations ran with the story of the Indian Navy attacking Karachi. The reports spread quickly. The terms “Karachi” and “Karachi Port” began trending on X, and images appeared on social media of dark clouds over the city caused by explosions.
Fact-checkers eventually found that those visuals had been from Gaza. In their briefing after the conflict ended, the Indian Navy said that it had been prepared to attack Karachi but had not done so.
Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
Anupreeta Das covers India and South Asia for The Times. She is based in New Delhi.
Pragati K.B. is a reporter for The Times based in New Delhi, covering news from across India.
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