The government’s Digital Media Wing (DMW) recently released a report titled, ‘Anti-State Trends: Deep Analytics Report’. The Current analysed the report, which was discussed on Geo News programme ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’ on Thursday night. The Current found glaring errors in the report.
Mentioning The Current’s research, Shahzeb Khanzada stated the facts mentioned in our report. “From The Current’s analysis, the 134-page report has 85 pages that have screenshots of tweets, which means that 63.4 per cent of the report is based on screenshots of people who are using a certain hashtag that the government has identified as being anti-state. The number of tweets that are in these 85 pages amounts to 666 tweets out of which 142 tweets are from three accounts, which means that 21.3 per cent of the tweets used in this study came from three people.”
“After further analysis of the three accounts, The Current discovered that all three accounts had a combined following of less than 11,000,” mentioned Shahzeb.
حکومت کی طرف سے ٹویٹر ٹرینڈز پرمبنی رپورٹ میں کس طرح ڈیٹالیا گیا۔ دیکھیے
The report was released Wednesday evening around 5:30PM and a few hours later a disclaimer was added to the report. According to journalist Fereeha Idrees, the disclaimer was added after she raised the issue with the DMW for being highlighted in the report as a ‘replies with the most followers’ account.
Shahzeb Khanzada also mentioned that The Current reached out to TweepsMap, which was the primary analysis app used by the government for this report. The maps and information all have the Tweepsmap link on the maps and all charts in the report. We asked the CEO of TweepsMap Samir Al-Battran if they considered the analysis of the report to be authentic since it used their app service. Samir told us, “The government of Pakistan is not authorised to use our service. We will investigate how they got access to our analysis and get back to you on this.”
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry refuted these claims on Shahzeb Khanzada’s programme.
“Were the Twitter trends data compiled without research? Was the press conference held without reading the final draft? Was the patriotism of our own citizens deliberately questioned? How did you determine which tweet is anti and pro-state?,” asked Shahzeb.
“The data could have been complied on a single page as well. We analysed the data for the past two years, around 150 trends were made, and we checked how India and Afghanistan glorified those trends. Around 37 lac tweets were done on the very trends. We spent around 1,000 hours going through those tweets,” said Fawad Chaudhry.
کیا بس ٹویٹر ٹرینڈز کا ڈیٹا اکھٹا کر کے بغیر تحقیق کیے رپورٹ بنا دی گئی؟ کیا بغیر پڑھے ہی پریس کانفرنس کردی گئی؟ کیا جان بوجھ کر اپنے ہی شہریوں کی حب الوطنی پر سوال اٹھا دیے گئے؟ دیکھیے 1/2
Shahzeb reiterated the fact that the report should have included how India and Afghanistan were involved in generating, promoting, and glorifying the very trends and sentiment analysis of the tweets should have been checked.
” I think you did not read the mechanism and neither did you try to understand the work done in the report,” replied the minister.
“The positive and negative sentiment does not matter, what matters is that people participated in the trend. India did all this because it wanted to portray to the international spheres that there is chaos within Pakistan,” added Fawad.
Former Interior Minister Rehman Malik also thanked Shahzeb for highlighting how his anti-India tweet was also part of the DMW report. “I hope someone from the Govt will apologise to me tomorrow.”
The Uttar Pradesh (UP) Police have filed a First Information Report (FIR) against a group ‘ Kranti Sena’ in Muzaffarnagar who conducted checks at a market to ensure that no Muslim man applies Mehndi on the hands of Hindu women ahead of Hariyali Teej, an event celebrated during the holy month of Shravana on August 10, reports The Indian Express.
In a viral video, members of the party are seen asking shopkeepers whether they have arrangements for applying henna. The video then cuts to the Kranti Sena General Secretary Manoj Saini, who says, “We have checked several shops and appealed to the owners to not employ Muslims as they indulge in ‘love jihad’ and trap our women while applying mehndi.”
In UP’s Muzaffarnagar, Kranti Sena, a right wing outfit went on a checking drive to ensure no Muslim applies “Mehandi” to women on Teej. pic.twitter.com/nSOMeWG9bN
After the video went viral, the police filed an FIR against the group. While talking to The Indian Express Aprit Vijayvargia, SP City Muzaffarnagar said, “It was brought to our notice after a video was uploaded on social media. Security has been heavily deployed in public places since there are many festivals. There is no law and order situation.”
Shopkeepers in the area said that they did not quite understand what the group wanted from them. “How can we not employ people on the basis of religion?” one of them asked.
According to The Quint, the FIR is against 51 members of the Kranti Sena, 11 named and 40 unnamed.
A report released by the Digital Media Wing (DMW) of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting titled, ‘Anti-State Trends: Deep Analytics Report’ is deeply misleading and based on assumptions instead of facts, The Current has discovered after analysing the report.
Glaring errors and almost comical additions, the report makes a correlation between analysing hashtags on Twitter to determine if someone is anti-state and is responsible for starting trends against Pakistan.
Before analysing the report, The Current researched and spoke with analysts who are well-versed with digital analysis. There is no record of any report on hashtag analysis to determine trends at a government level in any country at any time. Pakistan is the only country that has created a report based on hashtag analysis. Worldwide, hashtag analysis is considered to be deeply unreliable since it cannot understand what is written in the tweet – it is just able to see what is being discussed.
WHAT IS THE REPORT?
The report is a compilation of hashtags that created trends that the government deems anti-state. The report shows information collected about hashtag trends and then lists pages of screenshots that show different Twitter handles sharing tweets that have the ‘anti-state’ hashtag. They do not differentiate between users and also label ‘influencers’ – people with a following who have tweeted or retweeted/replied to the hashtag.
In effect, the report seems to declare all the users in the report as anti-state, until one prominent journalist got them to add a disclaimer last night.
HOW WAS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED?
Since the whole report is based on hashtag analysis, it will be considered to be unreliable data collection and cannot be considering as a legitimate report in any institution.
When The Current reached out to General Manager of the Digital Media Wing (DMW), Imran Ghazali, he responded to the question of faulty analysis of hashtags by saying, “The purpose of this report was to ascertain factual data and to analyze social media trends that were anti-state, Data was collected after analysing Pakistan Twitter Panel from June 2019- August 2021. Those hashtags were marked for data collection where the content of tweets were planned and propagated through a network to spread anti-state trends.”
According to a source in the government, the information used is public. “Publicly released data is accurate. It’s no rocket science, anybody with a credit card can get this data. Hence made public.”
From The Current’s analysis, the data was collected by using a web application called, ‘Tweeps Map’, which is open to the public.
From our findings, the 134-page report has 85 pages that have screenshots of tweets, which means that 63.4 per cent of the report is based on screenshots of people who are using a certain hashtag that the government has identified as being anti-state. The number of tweets that are in these 85 pages amount to 666 tweets out of which 142 tweets are from three accounts, which means that 21.3 per cent of the tweets used in this study came from three people.
After further analysis of the three accounts, The Current discovered that all three accounts had a combined following of less than 11,000.
We discovered that the hashtag #SanctionPakistan was ‘analysed’ for 41 days, Pakhtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) hashtags were clubbed together as “PTM Trends Tantamount to National Security” (the report doesn’t list which hashtags were used within this topic) and were ‘analysed’ for 22 months, #AbAwamSmashNahiHogi was ‘analysed’ for one day, and #StateKilledUsmanKakar, #IsraeliJetinPakistan, ‘JUIF Anti State Trend’, was ‘analysed’ but no time duration is given.
WHY AND WHEN WAS THE ‘DISCLAIMER’ ADDED?
The report was released Wednesday evening around 5:30PM and a few hours later a disclaimer was added to the report. According to journalist Fereeha Idrees, the disclaimer was added after she raised the issue with the DMW for being highlighted in the report as a ‘replies with the most followers’ account.
“I have always raised my voice against any propaganda against our state but the way the report was compiled, it made me look as one of the culprits and suddenly social media was rife with messages calling me anti-state,” Fereeha told The Current, “When I made the query, I was given the following explanation.”
The explanation given to Fereeha by the DMW stated, “All the accounts in the report doesn’t mean they took part in the anti-state activity…It shows the whole journey of the trends/hashtags, so in this case Fareeha Idrees replied/rebutted on the Israeli related trend and that’s why it mentions ‘Replies with most mentions’ in the report.”
After the DMW response, Fereeha demanded that they add a disclaimer to the report. A disclaimer was added which stated, “If an account is listed in a report – it doesn’t always imply that the content of the tweet is Anti-State. Some accounts have engaged/replied with an anti-state hashtag to rebut. But since they used the hashtag their accounts got listed in the report.”
Imran Ghazali admitted to adding the disclaimer after Fereeha raised an objection about the fairness of the report.
The Current asked Ghazali about how they have divided the report to show which people mentioned were anti-state and which ones were considered pro-state. Ghazali refused to directly answer the question and stated, “We have not given any number for pro-state or anti-state accounts but showed below the hashtags we highlighted the accounts which contributed to a certain hashtag – tweets, top contributors, replies etc.”
When we pressed him to answer the question about how the people selected were separated into anti-state and pro-state, he said, “If an account is listed in a report – it doesn’t always imply that the content of the tweet is Anti-State. Some accounts have engaged/replied with an anti-state hashtag to rebut. But since they used the hashtag their accounts got listed in the report.”
The implication of his answers show that the report does not – and cannot- differentiate people’s points of view on a tweet, which means that someone who has posted a ‘pro-state’ tweet condemning the hashtag will also be added into the list of someone who is considered anti-state.
WAS THE GOVERNMENT ALLOWED TO USE THE APP ‘TWEEPSMAP’?
The Current reached out to TweepsMap, which was the primary analysis app used by the government for this report. The maps and information all have the Tweepsmap link on the maps and all charts in the report. We asked the CEO of TweepsMap Samir Al-Battran if they considered the analysis of the report to be authentic since it used their app service. Samir told us, “The government of Pakistan is not authorised to use our service. We will investigate how they got access to our analysis and get back to you on this.”
We asked him for further details, asking if an individual used their service for analysis for a government funded report, would that be against their rules, to which Samir replied and said, “…Government agencies go through a vetting process before we allow them to use our service. We were never in communication with the government of Pakistan…Yes, [using the app without informing us what it is for] would be a misrepresentation and is definitely against our rules.”
The Current asked Ghazali if they used the application and if they had authorisation to which he said, “We used different tools/APIs including our internal tools to analyse data”. We asked him since TweepsMap is the only one that is being listed in the report, if they had gotten a subscription for the government of Pakistan to which we got no response.
WHAT ELSE IS IN THE REPORT?
We analysed the tweets used in the 85 screenshots present in the report and found some comical discrepancies. One retweet had the #SajalAly hashtag along with the ‘anti-state’ hashtag ‘#AccountabilityofZarbeAzb’. We went through the Twitter account to find that the tweet mentioned in the report was a meme of Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan.
A tweet by former Interior Minister Rehman Malik is included in the #SanctionPakistan list in which he is criticising Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the US.
The tweet Rehman Malik retweeted
The report also includes references to “a group of Wikipedia Admins most of whom are based in India,” giving state level credibility to an online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. With glaring spelling mistakes and analysis based on unauthorised data, the summary of the Digital Media Wing Deep Analysis report has been summed up by one senior data analyst based in Singapore, “That just goes to show… they don’t understand how it works.”
The Chupke Chupke star paid a tribute to the veteran Bollywood actor Madhuri Dixit by performing on her two iconic songs in her dance reels. Ayeza recreated Madhuri’s looks from Aaja Nachle (2007) and Aik Do Teen (1988).
Pyaray Afzal star Ayeza Khan playing a TikToker in her big-budget drama Laapata costarring Ali Rehman Khan, Sarah Khan and Gohar Rasheed.
Her character Geeti makes musical and dance oriented videos including songs from some Bollywood chartbusters of late Sridevi. She will also be donning Kajol”s avatar from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
An eight-year-old girl was reportedly murdered as part of a human sacrifice ritual planned by a local mystic in India’s Bihar, Hindustan Times reported.
The victim was a third grade student who went missing on August 4. A day later, her mutilated body was found on the banks of Ganga River.
The police detained four people and charged them with kidnapping and murder under the Indian Penal Code.
Superintendent JJ Reddy told the media that self-proclaimed mystic Parvez Alam had told a local villager, Dilip Kumar Choudhary, that he had to sacrifice a girl so that his pregnant wife would not lose her baby.
Choudhary further informed that Alam had four children and wanted a fifth. Alam had asked him to bring the eye of a 10-year-old boy or girl so he could prepare an amulet.
Choudhary told the police that he was involved in the crime because Alam provoked him.
The other two suspects, Tanvir Alam and Dasrath Kumar, allegedly helped Alam in the crime, the police reported.
Initial police reports suggest that Choudhary, Tanvir and Dasrath had abducted the girl when she was coming back home after delivering lunch to her father, who is a fisherman.
The three men dragged the girl inside a brick kiln, choked her and extracted out her right eye.
The girl’s body also had wounds suspected of rape.
After the forensic examination of the girl’s clothes and pendant, the medical board denied the possibility of rape, informed SP Reddy.
Initially, the police arrested 12 people but all were freed after an inquiry. Alam was arrested from his home after Choudhary confessed to the crime.
The girl’s mother and father, however, stated that the police have “cooked” up a story. They said that their daughter was sexually assaulted before being murdered
Foreign Minister (FM) Shah Mahmood Qureshi asked the Afghan government to avoid pointing fingers at Pakistan for its own failures and look into its governance issues.
In a press briefing at the Foreign Office (FO), he said Pakistan had repeatedly said it had no favourites in Afghanistan and saw all sides of the conflict as Afghans.
“It is unfortunate to scapegoat Pakistan for the failures of others; the issues of governance and meltdown of Afghan National Defence Forces need to be looked into — and not just start pointing fingers at Pakistan.”
“The time has come when the world wants answers to what has been achieved in Afghanistan in these past 20 years. The taxpayer in the United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and Europe wants to know who is responsible for no achievement. Pakistan will not be apologetic, as we are not accountable nor responsible for the trillions spent and nothing to show for it. No capacity building, no arms, where has everything gone?” remarked Qureshi.
“Pakistan is against a forceful takeover of Afghanistan. Pakistan does not want a military takeover, as we do not support one. We speak of a political takeover. A military takeover will result in more bloodshed and the people of Afghanistan have suffered and this suffering should end. Leadership inside Afghanistan should rise to the occasion and avoid a military takeover. We urge all sides to show respect for human rights and international humanitarian laws,” said Qureshi.
“We had made a request to be present there, but unfortunately, it was not accepted,” he said, adding that at the time of India assuming the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) presidency, Pakistan had asked it to operate objectively.
However, India did not behave in a manner that was befitting of that responsibility, the foreign minister said. “India has been, in our view, in breach of its obligation as president of the Security Council.”
Pakistan has been facilitating the peace process, and its role has been and will continue to be of a facilitator, the foreign minister said.
“We cannot guarantee, we can only facilitate,” he said, noting it was up to the Afghans to decide their future, and now the world community was backing Pakistan’s narrative that there is no military solution in Afghanistan.
While on the request of President Ashraf Ghani, intra-Afghan peace talks were postponed in Islamabad, Pakistan now looks forward to the August 11 peace talks of the troika consisting of Pakistan, China, and Russia with an aim of chartering a political way out for an Afghan-led peace process.
“We reiterate the need for the effective use of available peace mechanisms,” Qureshi said, adding Pakistan has always stressed the need for talks.
Nagar was shifted to a nearby hospital where he died during treatment. Police said that Nagar was preparing for a competitive examination at his residence.
Meanwhile, confirming Nagar’s death, Dr Rundla of Siddhivinayak Hospital said the man was brought to the facility in an unconscious condition. He died during treatment at the hospital. The man probably died of cardiac arrest, he added.
Nagar got married in February this year and was the eldest of his siblings.
Inflammatory, anti-Muslim slogans calling for murder were raised in New Delhi, India, on Sunday during a march “against Colonial-era laws” in the country — an event organised by a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ashwini Upadhyay, reported The Wire.
The event, organised under the ‘Bharat Jodo Movement’, demanded the end of “colonial-era laws” by implementing a Uniform Civil Code. The event was reportedly held without police permission.
In photos and videos of the event doing the rounds on social media, violent and inflammatory anti-Muslim slogans were raised at the event, including slogans directly calling for the murder of Muslims. The Delhi Police have registered an FIR against unknown persons.
People are questioning why an FIR has been registered against unknown people when their faces are clearly visible.
Every face is visible, every word loud and clear.. the action is dangerous and threat is imminent. What are you waiting for Delhi Police, @ArvindKejriwal ? Will you act? https://t.co/VcVoBe7CyM
Senior Journalist Barkha Dutt tweeted: “Revolting anti-Muslim slogans in heart of the capital is a clear example of hate speech and incitement to violence.”
Revolting anti-Muslim slogans in heart of the capital are a clear example of hate speech and incitement to violence. I do not agree with the sedition law or with the phrase anti-national but if ever there was an apt definition of it, it is these men, caught on tape @DelhiPolice
“I do not agree with the sedition law or with the phrase anti-national but if ever there was an apt definition of it, it is these men, caught on tape,” tweeted the journalist.
Indian journalist Smita Sharma tweeted, “Video clips doing the rounds of vitriolic dangerous sloganeering against Muslims in the heart of the capital.”
Video clips doing the rounds of vitriolic dangerous sloganeering against Muslims in the heart of the capital.These are not fringe elements or just stupid crowds.They have been emboldened.Will @DelhiPolice act against these toxic anti-nationals?@CPDelhi
Sharma further said, “These are not fringe elements or just stupid crowds. They have been emboldened. Will @DelhiPolice act against these toxic anti-nationals?@CPDelhi.”
Journalist Maya Mirchandani tweeted, “A group gets permission to hold a sit in at Jantar Mantar supposedly for unity in the country, then raises genocidal slogans against Indian Muslims in the heart of Delhi, a stone’s throw from parliament. Under govt’s nose, under @CPDelhi nose. How? #rightwingextremism #hatespeech”
A group gets permission to hold a sit in at Jantar Mantar supposedly for unity in the country, then raises genocidal slogans against Indian Muslims in the heart of Delhi, a stones throw from parliament. Under govt’s nose, under @CPDelhi nose. How? #rightwingextremism#hatespeechhttps://t.co/7c0FxCCz5u
The British government has claimed that the Pakistan authorities did not send them the Covid-19 data on vaccination and testing, which likely explains why Pakistan is still on the United Kingdom (UK) travel ban Red List while India and several other countries have been removed from the ban list and moved to the Amber category, Murtaza Ali Shah reports for The News.
Social media users, Pakistani and some UK officials also criticised the UK’s decision to not move Pakistan from the Red List to the Amber List but it has now come to light that the Pakistan government’s National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC) did not share the data of vaccination and testing with the UK authorities.
The Pakistani government officials have claimed that the UK authorities did not ask them for any data; that the Pakistan government has been sharing data with the British High Commission in Islamabad. The data was accessible on the NCOC’s Twitter and the UK government could have easily checked it before making and announcing a decision on the latest removals and retention of the travel list.
Ridiculous! UK govt, dominated by Indophiles & despite globally documented India’s continuing disastrous handling of Covid pandemic, moved India to Amber List but keeps Pak on Red; then under pressure from Opp MPs gives feeble excuse Pak didn’t share datahttps://t.co/05FAAVO4NL
Several British Pakistani MPs wrote objection letters after it was announced that Pakistan would stay on the Red List while India was taken off the list despite worse Covid-19 situation.
One British Pakistani spoke to a senior UK government minister who told the MP that Pakistan had failed to provide data to the UK government. There was no lobbying effort from the Pakistani government, which was why Pakistan remained on the Red List. Both the MP and the senior government minister wanted to be anonymous.
On Friday, NCOC head Asad Umar, and SAPM National Health Services Dr Faisal Sultan conducted a virtual meeting with Pakistani-origin Labour MPs Khalid Mahmood, Muhammad Yasin, Tahir Ali, Afzal Khan, Lord Wajid Khan, Imran Hussain, Yasim Qureshi, Pakistan High Commissioner Moazzam Ali Khan, Naz Shah and Dr Rosena Khan.
Five MPs, who spoke to Geo and The News, confirmed that the subject was discussed during the meeting whether Islamabad had given data to London or not – after two MPs asked the same question to Pakistani ministers. The MPs told Pakistan officials what the UK government had told them about not sharing the data.
According to the MPs, Asad Umar told them that the data was publicly available on the NCOC forums including Twitter and Youtube and the UK authorities could have got it. According to one MP, Faisal Sultan said that he had not spoken to British High Commissioner Christian Turner in “4-5 weeks”.
The MPs said they asked Pakistani ministers and Pakistan High Commission diplomats what efforts had they made to engage with the UK government through the Foreign Office and the High Commission to get Pakistan off the list. The MPs said Pakistani officials had no response.
The Pakistan High Commission said on Friday that the Pakistani envoy met PM Boris Johnson at Sandhurst Academy and highlighted the issue of Red List.
During their meeting with Asad Umar and Faisal Sultan, the MPs said that the UK government believed that Pakistan was performing lower in areas over positivity rate, percentage of genomic testing, and types of viruses, vaccination rates and testing.
In comparison, other countries fared well and came off the Red List. One MP told the Pakistani officials that Pakistan had conducted under 300 genomics tests in the whole year while some countries were conducting 2,500 genomics tests a month.
At the end of the meeting, Asad Umar tweeted: “Had a session with some UK MP’s regarding the continuation of Pakistan on the red list. Shared data regarding Covid disease surveillance and explained Pak strategy for Covid response. Will engage with the UK govt to ensure that red list decisions are based on science not politics.”
Had a session with some UK MP’s regarding continuation of Pakistan on the red list. Shared data regarding covid disease surveillance and explained Pak strategy for covid response. Will engage with UK govt to try and ensure that red list decisions are based on science not politics pic.twitter.com/yn1qgHmMyW
One MP said that at the end of the meeting, Asad Umar shared with them the information sheets that were required. “It’s clear looking at these sheets that Pakistan has up-to-date data but I feel Pakistan authorities should have shared the same with the UK government and run effective lobbying. The UK MPs have been raising their voice because they are under pressure from their constituents but it’s the government’s responsibility to have engaged with the UK government,” said the MP.
