I’m actually baffled about Kashmir. The Oppression in the region is beyond worrying but something new caught my attention while I was looking for some news regarding Kashmir. I’ll sum it up in this thread.
India’s dominance over social media is alarming. FB rapidly removes content propagating the Kashmir cause or highlighting the Indian atrocities in the region. YouTube does the same. Some videos against India are removed even before they are properly indexed in the search.
Similarly with google images. If you look for it you’ll hardly fine 10% of what it actually should be. Images of victims of pellet guns disappear. Although, the most interesting thing is their social media approach.
The narrative of the state is paddled by journalists & celebrities. Easily the two most influential set of people in any country?! Once a narrative is built up here it’s also repeatedly backed by the cluster of media channels running in the country available in all languages.
Furthermore, more than 326 MILLION Indians are on social media. Already under a specific influence they cater out the same narrative. Westerners, global politicians and celebrities have their posts/tweets flooded by them easily.
Search India or Kashmir, top searches would be coverage from them. So anyone interested in this issue easily buys their narrative so people are convinced or either completely unaware of atrocities in Kashmir.
To further worsen the mess for the poor Kashmiris, Arab Muslim world doesn’t have free media. Pakistan’s media is horrible at international coverage. None of our channel is capable of reaching to foreign audience. Indus news may do it if they survive. Your ARYs & GEOs are garbage
Globally the Indian narrative is easily flooded. More to their govs assistance their tech is great. They utilise all digital media tools to monitor their image and counter anti India narratives with Tonnes of stealth (fake) accounts. All these accounts appear authentic
A completely win-win situation for them. Hence this becomes one of the reason why people are so unaware of the plight of Kashmiris.