India
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Maharashtra flags cross border disinformation on NEET protests
The Hindu··29 Jul
The Maharashtra State Cyber Department said it found links to nearly 500 social media profiles involved in a cross border disinformation campaign during the Cockroach Janta Party protests. Technical analysis indicated involvement of anti-social elements operating from Pakistan and certain Middle Eastern countries, actively amplifying misleading and AI generated narratives targeting Indian audiences across multiple platforms.
Prism
What It Means For You
- Social media users following protest coverage should be cautious of AI generated crowd visuals and cloned audio identified in this investigation.
- The findings are relevant to anyone assessing the authenticity of viral videos attributed to public figures during politically charged events.
- It signals that legal action and content takedowns are now following identified disinformation accounts, affecting how such content stays online.
What's Happening
- Maharashtra's State Cyber Department found links to nearly 500 social media profiles involved in a cross border disinformation campaign on NEET protests.
- Technical analysis pointed to anti-social elements from Pakistan and Middle Eastern countries amplifying misleading narratives targeting Indian audiences.
- The content included digitally inflated crowd visuals, synthetic voice generation, cloned audio and manipulated videos falsely attributed to public figures.
How Forensic Tools Caught The Fakes
- Police identified 429 objectionable posts and handles across Instagram, X, Facebook and YouTube, with about 100 accounts operating from outside India.
- More than 140 posts involved AI generated or AI assisted content, validated using Maharashtra Cyber's audio-video forensic analysis tools.
- Legal action has been initiated against identified accounts, and flagged content has been taken down through social media intermediaries.
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