NEW DELHI: Indian police are seeking the owners of around 100 social media accounts accused of sharing “fake news” after mob attacks on mosques in the country’s northeast.
Last month’s violence in Tripura state erupted on the sidelines of a rally for hundreds of followers of a right-wing Hindu nationalist group.
The incident appeared to be a revenge attack prompted by the killing of several Hindu worshippers across the border in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.
Four mosques were vandalized and several Muslim-owned homes and businesses were ransacked.
According to police, people aiming to whip up further violence shared misleading images on social media after the incident.
“The accounts identified were spreading rumors, fake news, fake videos and fake photographs that were not even linked to Tripura,” a senior police officer in the state told AFP on Sunday, on condition of anonymity.
“It is still too early but everyone will be identified and arrested for such fabrications.”
A police report released to media on Saturday identified 102 posts that it said were published by “unknown miscreants” to provoke conflict between “people of differing religious communities.”
Local media reports said police had written to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to demand the posts be removed.
Much of the offending posts had been removed by Sunday and AFP could not determine their content.
Those that remained online largely appeared to be highlighting the plight of Muslims targeted in the attacks.
“Tripura is burning!” read a post by an Indian journalist based in New Delhi, which was published on the day of the incident without accompanying photos or footage and highlighted in the police document.
Last month’s attacks put the state on high alert, with security forces guarding mosques and police banning gatherings of more than four people.
Tripura is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party.
Leaders of India’s minority Muslim community say they have increasingly been subject to attacks and threats, with little opportunity for official recourse, since the Hindu nationalist party came to power in 2014.
“The state government is yet to initiate any big action against those who perpetrated violence,” said a statement from a coalition of Indian Muslim groups on Saturday.
“Those police officers who did not prevent the violence should also be subject to enquiry and action must be taken against them,” it added.
India hunts ‘fake news’ spreaders after anti-Muslim attacks
https://arab.news/z73p5
India hunts ‘fake news’ spreaders after anti-Muslim attacks
- Four mosques were vandalized and several Muslim-owned homes and businesses were ransacked
Saudi Arabia ‘ideal partner’ in shaping next wave of intelligent age, communication minister tells WEF
- Abdullah Al-Swaha said aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age”
DAVOS: Saudi Arabia has accelerated efforts in “energizing the intelligent age,” making the Kingdom the world’s ideal partner in shaping the next wave of the technological age, said the minister of communication and information technology.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Abdullah Al-Swaha said the aim was to “help the world achieve the next $100 trillion by energizing the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom was expanding global partnerships for the benefit of humanity and highlighted both local and international achievements.
“We believe the more prosperous the Kingdom, the Middle East, is, the more prosperous the world is. And it is not a surprise that we fuel 50 percent of the digital economy in the kingdom or the region,” he told the audience. He added the Kingdom fueled three times the tech force of its neighbors and, as a result, 50 percent of venture capital funding.
Al-Swaha said Saudi Arabia was focused both on artificial intelligence acceleration and adoption. At home, he said, the Kingdom was doubling the use of agentic AI in the public and private sector to increase worker productivity tenfold. He also cited the world’s first fully robotic heart transplant, which was conducted in Saudi Arabia.
“If we double down on talent, technology, and build trust with partners, we can achieve success,” he said. “And we are following the same blueprint for the intelligence age.”
He said the Kingdom aimed to be a “testbed” for innovators and investors. Rapid technological adoption and investment have boosted Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy, with non-oil activities accounting for 56 percent of GDP and surpassing $1.2 trillion in 2025, ahead of the Vision 2030 target.
In terms of adoption, Al-Swaha said the Kingdom had introduced the Arabic-language AI model, Allam, to be adopted across Adobe product series. It has also partnered with Qualcomm to bring the first hybrid AI laptop and endpoints to the world.
“These are true testimonies that the kingdom is not going local or regional; we are going global,” he said.
