Social media platforms, which once served primarily to connect individuals, have now entered the geo-political arena. Today, states, along with their leaders and officials, significantly turn to social media during crises. A leading concern, however, is the role these social media sites play in escalating crisis, primarily when states deliberately issue distorted and fake information to gain their strategic interests. The likelihood of escalation is increasingly magnified when two nuclear weapon states confront each other, as social media platforms can create misperception and likely confusion. A compelling case study of this dilemma is the recent four-day clash between India and Pakistan. Although the two countries have a legacy of conflicts over the Kashmir dispute, the recent conflicts have taken a more serious turn. To meet its strategic interests, India has intensified its online disinformation campaign, waging a digital war against Pakistan. With around 33.7% of India’s total population active on social media platforms as of January 2025, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government found a big opportunity to spread hate and disinformation against Pakistan while receiving domestic applause.
This leveraging of social media domains for political and strategic objectives turns even more dangerous when internal terrorist incidents (real world issues) are exploited to ignite public uproar and escalate bilateral tensions. On April 22, 2025, a group of militants attacked tourists in the Baisaran Valley near Pahalgam, located in Indian Illegally Occupied Kashmir (IIOK), killing 26 civilians. India, as usual, without providing any evidence, blamed Pakistan for the incident, thereby initiating a new battle on social media platforms. Though Pakistan denied the Indian allegations and called for a joint investigation, India persisted in spreading its fake narrative online via social media platforms. Derogatory tweets and baseless allegations by BJP leaders and other nationalists on X (formerly twitter) and Facebook further enflamed public sentiments, acting as a catalyst for glorifying war and spreading hate. Hashtags like #PakistanTerroristState and #RevengeForPahalgam were used by thousands of Indian X users to amplify war narratives and to urge the government to take revenge. A prominent Hindu columnist and social media influencer, Shefali Vaidya, in a post on X, labelled Pakistanis living in India as “leeches” and declared them an economic burden and a demographic threat to Hindus. Thus, hardline nationalists in India worked towards maligning Pakistan’s image and spreading this false narrative across social media platforms. But the hate narrative was not only limited to Pakistanis; the Indian Muslims and Kashmiri Muslims also suffered the wrath of Hindu nationalists, as the India Hate Lab (IHL) recorded 64 in-person hate speech incidents between 22nd April and 2nd May across India. Similarly, those Indians who supported peace over war were bullied and labelled traitors by troll networks, a phenomenon quite common under Modi’s rule.
Two weeks later, India launched its “Operation Sindoor”, conducting strikes on nine Pakistani sites under the claim that it targeted terrorist infrastructure and alleged terrorists. But this fake news was soon debunked, as no evidence of civilian casualties or terrorist sites attacked was presented. In fact the places India attacked were not terrorist hubs at all, this was obviously a false flag operation, not the first of its kind but certainly the worst to date. The operation was accompanied by war mongering and nationalist tweets from Indian leaders, for instance the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his official X account tweeted, “Operation Sindoor has ignited a spirit of patriotism across India”. Similarly, Rajnath Singh, the Indian Defense Minister, tweeted that Operation Sindoor is a mere “trailer” signaling a possibility of a more intense clash. The risk of escalation was further amplified by the circulation of artificial intelligence (AI) generated imagery representing Hindu religious Gods, as it added a religious angle to the war. This online discourse was inspired by rigid Hindutva ideology and provided an endorsement for PM Modi’s aggressive retaliation, presenting an ideal opportunity to further accelerate the online disinformation campaign pushing posts and videos that exaggerated stories of Indian military might. Misleading and unverified videos of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and Iranian missile attacks on Israel were circulating on social media sites with captions that linked them to the Indian strikes on Pakistani targets. In another instance, an old video from the Pakistani Mirage aircraft crash in Vehari was disseminated, claiming that the Indian forces had shot down the aircraft. Similarly, an AI generated fake video linked to the Pakistani Director General ISPR (Inter-Services Public Relations) accepting the loss of two JF-17 fighter aircraft by Indian strikes was disseminated to demonstrate Pakistani forces’ weakness. Soon, these viral social media videos spread into the mainstream media channels, deepening the impact of India’s pro-war narrative. The objective was to boost the morale of the Indian citizens by assuring that revenge was served and to put psychological pressure on the Pakistani public, creating panic and war hysteria.
Consequently on May 10, Pakistan launched “Operation Bunyan un Marsoos” in response to the Indian violation of Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty, conducting missile strikes on three Indian air bases. Though the two neighbors finally reached a ceasefire, the strategic use of social media to escalate the crisis raised questions on future tensions in the region. This deliberate exploitation of digital platforms has significantly increased the risk of miscalculation and escalation between India and Pakistan. It is because a fake online narrative of one state claiming that it has inflicted significant damage can compel the other state to respond. Especially, with the advent of AI-generated deep fake technology and the increasing reliance of the public on the information provided on social media platforms, this risk for future conflict escalation has been further exacerbated. Similarly, the misuse of social media sites by a state like India with far-right fanatical leaders, who glorify war narratives, poses another challenge. Hence, there’s no doubt that the online disinformation and fake news proliferated post-Pahalgam intensified the risk of a conflict between India and Pakistan, which may imbalance the strategic stability in South Asia. The situation becomes extremely volatile because the line between fact and fiction becomes blurred, especially in the case of two nuclear arch enemies. To sustain peace in the region, there’s an urgent need to introduce strict international regulations to block or hamper the weaponization of social media platforms by aggressive states like India.
Ms Laiba Amjad is Research Fellow at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS), Islamabad.
