The year 2023 has been a remarkable year for India with the country launching its first successful lunar mission and hosting the G-20 Summit with guests descending in New Delhi from across the world. The year also witnessed a prolonged ethnic clash in the North East state of Manipur that claimed more than 180 lives and displaced thousands and a horrific triple train accident in Odisha.
Internationally, the Israel-Hamas conflict and the rift in the Indo-Canadian relationship impacted the Indian news cycle massively. Among the major events of 2023, what remained constant was misinformation and fake news surrounding them.
BOOM analysed the top events of 2023 and how it impacted the misinformation trends and related fake narratives.
1. Ethnic Clashes in Manipur
Manipur saw an outbreak of massive ethnic clashes between the majority Meiteis and the minority Kuki-Zo community from May 3, 2023 after a protest was launched against the demand for inclusion of the former community in the Scheduled Tribe quota. Soon after, the government decided to shut off the Internet to stop spread of misinformation. However, an image of a woman's dead body wrapped in plastic went viral by then with a fake narrative.
Unrelated photo was viral as image of Meitei woman raped and killed by Kukis in Manipur
Despite the Internet being shut down fake news started trickling in from the early days of the sporadic violence. On May 6 BOOM fact-checked a picture of a woman's dead body wrapped in plastic, that was peddled with a false claim that is shows the body of a woman from the Meitei community who was sexually assaulted and killed by the Kukis. We found the photograph is of an old honour killing incident from Delhi and was able to identify the woman as Aayushi Chaudhary, who was murdered by her parents and her body later discarded near Yamuna Expressway in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh. Read BOOM's fact check here.
2. Israel-Palestine Conflict
Since Hamas militants invaded Israel in an ambush like attack on October 7, 2023, and Israel declared war on Palestine the following day, fact checkers have been grappling with a misinformation and fake narrative storm that hit them and took them by surprise. Between October 7 to December 22, 2023, BOOM has fact checked 100 claims surrounding the ongoing war. Misinformation around the war was often triggered by disturbing and graphic images and videos. Read BOOM's Study here.
Pallywood: False Claims on Palestinians staging deaths surged
A striking trend that stood out in Israel-Palestine fake news narrative is the dehumanisation of Palestinians and false allegations of them faking their deaths and injuries. The Internet came up with a disparaging term to describe the ‘fake’ Palestinian suffering – Pallywood and likened it to the term given to film industries like Hollywood.
Several pro-Israeli accounts accused Palestinians faking their injuries and deaths amid the conflict to inflate death tools. BOOM, in a compilation, listed 12 of its fact checks, which showed unrelated photos and videos that were used to target Palestinians and their death toll.
3. Launch Of Chandrayaan 3
India's third lunar mission, Chandrayaan-3, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was launched on July 14, 2023. The mission with a lunar lander Vikram and a rover named Pragyan, entered the lunar orbit on August 5 and made a successful soft landing on the south pole of the Moon on August 23, 2023. Since the launch of the lunar mission, several footages from unrelated space missions and animated clips surfaced linking them to the Chandrayaan launch.
Photoshopped image shared as Indian emblem and ISRO logo imprint on Moon’s surface
Soon after India landed on the moon with Chandrayaan 3's Vikram lander rolling out on the moon's surface on August 23, 2023, an image purporting to show imprints of the ISRO logo and the national emblem on the moon's surface went viral as real. BOOM however found that image was made using Photoshop and was not an actual photo of the imprint of ISRO's logo and national emblem. The image was made by one Krishanshu Garg, who confirmed to BOOM that he used Adobe Photoshop to make it.
4. G-20 Summit
India hosted the eighteenth G20 or Group of Twenty summit in New Delhi between September 9 and September 10, 2023. Following the event, several doctored visuals and unrelated videos surfaced making false narratives. Videos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi were overlaid with audio and clipped to amplify false communal claims.
Delegates did not receive 'Magnificent Bharat' booklet at G20 summit
A digital copy of a book titled ‘Magnificent Bharat’ was viral with the claim that it was distributed among the delegates of the G 20 summit. BOOM found these claims to be false; our fact-check revealed that the viral book "Magnificent Bharat" was published in August, 2021, and had no link to the recently held G20 summit. Furthermore, we also went through the list of published documents on the official website of the G20 summit, and could not find any mention of this book.
5. Assembly Elections
Five big states including Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram went to polls this year in November. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured a sweeping victory in Madhya Pradesh and overturned Congress-led governments in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Meanwhile Congress managed to secure Telangana. Unrelated videos and doctored content started trickling in from the early days of the poll campaigns.
Videos overlaid with fake audios ahead of Madhya Pradesh elections
BOOM saw a rise in fake and edited videos targeting Congress and BJP candidates. In the run up to the Madhya Pradesh elections, BOOM verified 17 old and edited videos that were shared with a false and misleading context. Former Chief Minister of MP Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his main rival, Kamal Nath, were targeted with three videos each. Interestingly, BOOM noticed that all the videos were overlaid with a fake voiceover to make the claims, however, it is not clear whether they were created by mimicry artists or with the help of generative-AI tools.
India-Canada Diplomatic Row
In September this year, India and Canada engaged in a bitter diplomatic conflict after the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged in the parliament that India was connected to Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar's killing earlier in June, 2023. What followed next was top level expulsions of Indian and Canadian diplomats from the respective countries. While Indian government dismissed the allegations as 'absurd', it also accuses Canada of sheltering anti-India group Khalistanis.
Canada did not update its travel advisory post the row
Amidst the row, news agency ANI and other mainstream news outlets reported that Canada had updated its travel advisory for India warning Canadian citizens to “exercise a high degree of caution” and advised them against travelling to Jammu and Kashmir. However, Global Affairs Canada confirmed to BOOM that “no new risk information” was added to the India travel advisory page. The Canadian government department further added the travel health information provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada was updated on September 18, 2023 as part of routine maintenance.
8. Triple Train Accident in Odisha
On June 2, 2023, a triple train accident occured near Balasore, Odisha, leaving 296 dead. According to reports, the Coromandel Express entered the passing loop instead of the main line near Bahanaga Bazar railway station resulting in a massive collision with a goods train and the Bengaluru Howrah Superfast express. In a study of the claims, BOOM found that the majority were communal in nature and predominantly targeted the Muslim community.
Photo of ISKCON temple was viral as a mosque next to tracks
Soon after the news broke, an aerial image of the accident site was viral with false claims that there was a mosque located beside the tracks. Several Hindu right-wing social media users used the photo, which shows an arrow pointing to the structure, to falsely insinuate that the Muslim community might have been behind the accident. BOOM found the image shows an ISKCON temple beside the railway track near the Bahanaga Bazar station in Balasore, not a mosque as claimed by the viral posts.