Pakistani Twitter/X has been awash for the past 24 hours with the Sky News interview of former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s sons and then of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesman, Mosharraf Zaidi. In fact, it would be fair to say that discussion and debate on the portion of Sky News anchor Yalda Hakim’s interview with Imran Khan’s sons has been overshadowed by that on the exchanges between her and Mr Zaidi.
Much of the criticism of Mr Zaidi has come from supporters of the PTI and of the former prime minister, attacking him personally and calling him a sell-out to a military-controlled dispensation. Many have also taken issue with his former tweets, in which he strongly criticised Imran Khan’s arrest, compared to his defence of the same now, simply because he is working as a spokesman for the current government.
Whatever side of the story you stand on, certain things are plainly clear: that in today’s world, perception is everything; getting your narrative out there, especially on social media, is crucial, even for governments; and information is a weapon. And if information is weaponised, that also necessarily means that disinformation is weaponised, as we saw in the aftermath of the tragic Bondi Beach shootings.
But let’s stick with the Sky News interviews first, in particular that of its news anchor, Yalda Hakim, with Mosharraf Zaidi. Opinion on who did well is strongly divided, mostly along party lines, and it seems that those who support Imran Khan and his party have gone all guns blazing for Mr Zaidi. One lawyer who has represented the party’s founder has even tweeted asking his followers to draw up a list of all those who have tweeted in support of the Government of Pakistan spokesman.
Any opinion on how well or poorly the Government of Pakistan spokesman did on Sky News has to be a subjective matter and will vary from person to person. However, certain things are clear, such as how he used facts to counter the solitary confinement issue repeatedly brought up by the Sky News anchor, and how he spoke fluent English, which can be a problem at times, since lack of fluency can hinder clear communication and hamper articulation.
Social media platforms are unable to check the flow of fake news and disinformation and are more or less helpless against it, especially in real time, as a narrative is being formed and public perception is shaped
Comparisons can be made between Mosharraf Zaidi and how other government spokespersons have performed on foreign news channels. In one case, the spokesperson kept literally shouting and failed to make himself heard, while in another, issues related to fluency in language ended up hampering the proper articulation and communication of the government’s viewpoint to the channel’s viewers.
The importance of getting your narrative out, especially on social media, cannot be underestimated. In today’s world, perception is everything, and in this mix comes the further challenge of having to deal with growing misinformation and disinformation, which is increasingly becoming state-sponsored, or at least covertly state-sponsored and driven.
This was clearly evident in the aftermath of the Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney. In fact, the disinformation and fake news began even before the incident was over. Since it lasted quite some time and was being relayed largely through social media via video footage shared by people who were in and around the area at the time, the skewing of the narrative began before anything substantive could be ascertained about the attack, particularly relating to the identities and backgrounds of the two shooters.
That is where Indian social media handles, supplemented by their mainstream media organisations, began claiming – without proof, as always – that the shooters were linked to Pakistan. The very tenuous reasoning used to justify this was that their names sounded ‘Pakistani’ and, since Pakistan is deemed to be associated with extremism, they must therefore have links to it.
The above is essentially the narrative of the BJP and Narendra Modi’s government, and India’s mainstream media not only subscribes to it hook, line and sinker, but is also an eager participant in pushing any fake news and disinformation that furthers such a narrative. In fact, the extremism angle is also applied to all of India’s Muslim population by its government as well as the mainstream media in general.
So, in the case of the Bondi Beach shooting, even before the dust could settle and the magnitude of the tragedy be known in terms of the final death toll and so on, there was disinformation linking it to Pakistan. This continued for many hours, and only after Australian authorities announced that the shooters did, in fact, have an Indian connection, and that the father had travelled recently to the Philippines on an Indian passport, did the narrative begin to shift. Before the official announcement was made, a major Australian news channel ran an interview with a former work acquaintance of the younger shooter (who is now in custody), who said that he was Indian and had an Italian mother.
There was no connection whatsoever to Pakistan, and even then, a mainstream Indian news organisation – none other than the Times of India – kept claiming that the shooters were originally from Pakistan. It was only after several hours of shaming that the Times of India was forced to delete this tweet. And once the Indian connection was confirmed by the Government of Australia, the same Indian journalists who had been claiming that the shooters were from Pakistan began saying that where the shooters came from did not matter.
By this point, Indian mainstream media had solidified its position as the world’s smelliest gutter and cesspool. Of course, one could argue that by the time the official announcement had been made, the damage had already been done by linking the shooters to a Pakistani connection – and perhaps that was the aim in any case of those behind the disinformation and fake news.
The Yalda Hakim interview with Mosharraf Zaidi suggests that governments should work with professional journalists to drive their narrative forward instead of relying on bureaucrats or politicians. The reason is simple: professional journalists are more likely to be armed with relevant facts and are more capable of dealing with hostile and probing anchors than politicians or official government spokespersons.
The Bondi Beach coverage suggests that social media platforms are unable to check the flow of fake news and disinformation and are more or less helpless against it, especially in real time, as a narrative is being formed and public perception is shaped. That void, at least for now, can only be filled by journalists and intelligent observers who can check and verify whether a video clip or a claim is true or not, and then post on their accounts accordingly, warning their followers. Even then, the original post can, and often does, remain unless action is taken against the account by the platform.