BOLLYWOOD star and BJP politician Paresh Rawal, is also an active Twitter user who regularly posts his views about politics, life and eagerly participates in online political debate, with his pro-BJP tweets retweeted by thousands of followers.

On Feb 27, however, Rawal made a bit of a slip. He accidentally tweeted a google document titled: Trend Alert: #Jhoothicongress, an internal document circulated by the BJP’s media cell containing a list of tweets in English and Hindi attacking the Congress party for its alleged incompetence, corruption and duplicity on a range of issues.

These were meant to be tweeted in unison by the BJP’s cell, and while Rawal realised his gaffe and quickly deleted the tweet, the tweetstorm began on schedule and, sure enough, #Jhoothicongress was soon trending — thanks to a mere 473 users posting 489 tweets (and of course the ensuing retweets) out of a total user base that numbers in the millions. From here, the cascade effect took place, as more and more latched on to the now prominent hashtag.

Thus, a small bunch of dedicated keyboard grabbers can create the illusion of mass support and raise their cause to the level where it attracts millions of eyeballs.

Pakistani social media is swamped with ‘social media cells’.

Pakistani social media is also swamped with the ‘social media cells’ of political parties and pressure groups that follow the same format. Some employ ‘bots’: automated accounts that appear to be of real people but in fact tweet what they are programmed to. Thus is public opinion moulded, and governments across the world have taken note.

It was the Arab Spring, where protesters turned to social media (the only outlet free of government control) to coordinate their actions and spread their narrative, that forced governments to ask: how do we use this to our advantage and to counter the narrative of our opponents?

Small wonder then, that the NGO Freedom House reports that over 30 countries employ active ‘cyber troops’ to disseminate propaganda on social media and shout down opponents and critics. In 2013, Israel launched a programme to create ‘covert units’ of students in seven Israeli universities who would engage in ‘online public diplomacy’. Known as hasbara, this effectively translates into spreading Israeli propaganda online and shouting down opponents. Indeed, curbing domestic dissent through social media is now largely the global focus.

Take Russia, where the Internet Research Agency and Nashi are just two organisations known to train and pay trolls to attack Putin’s domestic and foreign enemies. There are daily targets and agendas, with lists of ‘enemies’ being circulated, who are then subjected to vicious and well-coordinated attacks by the many accounts controlled by these operatives who usually work out of so-called ‘troll factories’ and are even given English lessons to be able to more effectively play their roles. One estimate is that they account for 45 per cent of total twitter activity in Russia.

A nine-country study by Oxford University notes that Azerbaijan hosts over 50 pro-government ‘troll-training centres’ whose mandate is to harass and abuse opposition politicians and journalists deemed not ‘patriotic’ enough, drowning them out in a deluge of abuse. Any questions about human rights abuses are quickly countered with ‘whataboutism’ and comparisons with arch-enemy Armenia.

Then there’s China, where a report by Harvard University estimates “that the government fabricates and posts about 448 million social media comments a year”. In a contrast from the Russian and Azerbaijani tactics, Chinese cyber warriors don’t typically troll dissidents or spread disinformation but instead aim to distract social media users during key moments.

Democratic elections have proven quite vulnerable to such tactics, and there are many who attempt to use them. In 2013, South Korea’s spy agency admitted to sending out over a million tweets to support conservative presidential candidate Park Geun-hye and smear her opponents for being pro-North Korea. She won the election.

In the UK, it is estimated that in the months leading up to the Brexit vote, around one-third of all Twitter traffic was from pro-Leave automated bots.

Then there’s the Trump campaign which, apart from allegations of Russian support, also employed tactics to directly target swing voters on social media. It worked, and the Oxford report states: “The illusion of online support for a candidate can spur actual support through a bandwagon effect.”

Such campaigns often achieve their purpose by simply discouraging support for opponents through a mix of misinformation or selective use of information. Some even pretend to be members of the opposition who then post inflammatory opinions that discredit that opposition. To wit, if you can’t convince them, confuse them.

The writer is a journalist.

Twitter: @zarrarkhuhro

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2018