Surge in TikTok videos aimed at misleading Indian Muslims over coronavirus precautions
As India remains under lockdown for another eleven days, vested interests have turned to the Chinese short-form video app, TikTok, to exploit religious sentiments of the country's Muslim population to discourage it from practising social-distancing and mask-wearing as part of Covid-19 measures.
An investigation by a Delhi-based digital lab, Voyager Infosec, into more than 30,000 clips circulated this week suggests a set pattern of targeted disinformation campaign aimed at the Indian Muslim community.
The videos show young boys, teens and adults playing Muslims, who discourage fellow Muslims from exercising precautions.
These TikTok conversations are laced with religious overtones.
"CORONAVIRUS IS ALLAH'S NRC"
In one such video, a young boy describes the pandemic as "Allah's NRC".
"This coronavirus is nothing. It's Allah's NRC. It's Allah's wish who stays and who is summoned up," he argues.
The 13-second video ends with fellow boys throwing their masks into the air, with a song, "Allah Se Dar -- Fear Allah" playing in the background.
"COVID-19 DOESN'T AFFECT MUSLIMS"
Another 17-second clip runs texts in Hindi that suggest coronavirus would not strike Muslims. One line invokes the Holy Qu'ran while claiming hand-shaking and hugging cure disease.
Voyager Infosec has submitted its digital investigation report to the Union Home Ministry.
The lab identified a range of high-impact videos that stoke religious sentiments of the Muslim community against lockdown guidelines.
The report, reviewed by India Today, found that TikTok has been used as the most preferred medium of a disinformation campaign.
Initial analysis of these viral videos reveals that more than 10 million users have already watched them so far.
HIDDEN DIGITAL TRAIL
Many of the accounts which created the content originally are being deleted regularly after the videos go viral, the report notes. This tactic helps content creators to hide their digital footprints, according to Voyager Infosec's findings.
FOREIGN CONTENT FOR INDIAN MUSLIMS
"Some of the videos have foreign origin but they have been edited with Hindi texts and Urdu voiceover to target Indian audiences," the investigation claims.
The probe report recommends a deeper investigation into the possible role of foreign actors behind this disinformation campaign.
"We have found a very interesting pattern where TikTok has been used as a primary medium to spread misinformation, citing fake and dubious research, which claims that coronavirus does not affect Muslims and that there has not been a single Muslim coronavirus patient in China and Italy," said Voyager's Director Jiten Jain. "We have identified certain handles and patterns of these videos and once they go viral the original handle gets deleted to hide the origin. The purpose of this investigation is to inform our Muslim brothers of such patterns," Jiten told India Today.
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