Operation Sindoor: The Troll Tax

It was an unexpected letdown for trolls and hyper-nationalists, after viral posts and TV broadcasts had continuously fuelled war rhetoric. They now demanded their first victim: unsuspecting Foreign Secretary, Vikram Misri. Late on the same evening, the moment he announced violations by Pakistan of the ceasefire agreement, online trolls unleashed a barrage of invectives on him and his family, forcing him to protect his tweets and retreat from public view.

Ever since the terrorist attack that killed 26 Indian tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir on April 22, social media had become a parallel warfront. It was flooded with viral posts, aggressive hashtags and doctored footage that amplified war rhetoric and fanned public outrage. Even after the ceasefire was declared, the digital noise grew louder, exerting pressure on the government to act and dragging the narrative back towards escalation.

바카라�With some TV channels whipping up emotions based on events that never happened바카라�and with trolls and other online influencers spreading those sort of untruths바카라�we바카라�re not far from a time when fake information outweighs the real,바카라� cautions Pavan Duggal, a cyberlaw expert and Supreme Court advocate.

In response to the escalating rhetoric, the Indian government바카라�s response was swift. It used its executive powers to ask X (formerly known as Twitter) to ban over 8,000 accounts allegedly violating laws related to national security. The move, however, sparked concerns over how misinformation was being curbed, and free speech safeguarded, as it did not stem the tide of misinformation available online or propagated by TV channels. There바카라�s a reason why it didn바카라�t: trolling has become an inexpensive proposition, and virtual armies are no longer led by a handful of influential leaders with vast followings.

Today, just a few hundred rupees a month for a blue tick, and a dozen followers are enough to spark an online storm. The key is that they echo a lead follower. So, if United States President Donald Trump writes on X that India and Pakistan have decided to announce a ceasefire, simply amplifying that message is enough to make it go viral, no matter the number of followers.

Interestingly, that is where the government decided to intervene, says a spokesperson for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), which oversees orders to X and other online platforms to withhold content. 바카라�We asked the intermediary [X] to act against content with viral potential that could cause harm, such as by affecting the morale of the armed forces,바카라� he says, adding that the government has legal powers under the Information Technology Act to control 바카라�misinformation campaigns and anti-national activities바카라�. He said some blocked X handles were un-banned after the content deemed risky was 바카라�deleted바카라�.

바카라�The problem is that the government sought to control the flood of disinformation by exercising its discretionary power, and in secret,바카라� says Apar Gupta, a Delhi-based advocate and founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation. (The MeitY spokesperson clarified that no list of banned X handles has been released to the public, making the action opaque). 바카라�It appears to have selectively applied regulation to media outlets and X accounts, and those that raised questions were presumed to be a threat to national security, and not heard,바카라� says Gupta.

While advisories were issued for TV news coverage during Operation Sindoor, broadcasts remained sensational and continued war-mongering, despite the implications for national security and India바카라�s role in the world. 바카라�Perhaps, the government got the accounts blocked as per its own political interests along with [addressing] national security [concerns],바카라� says Gupta.

But the biggest ever order to block handles did not control the outpouring of trolls바카라� vitriol. The Misri case is a perfect illustration of this. Within days, demands arose on social media that India downgrades ties with Turkiye. This added to the diplomatic disaster caused by right-wing YouTuber Major (Retd.) Gaurav Arya, who denounced, in distasteful language, Iran바카라�s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, who visited India to commemorate 75 years of the India-Iran Friendship Treaty and discuss bilateral issues.

Arya바카라�s language바카라�apparently sparked by Araghchi visiting Pakistan before he came to India바카라�forced the Indian embassy in Iran to distance itself from his remarks, which invited a sharp reaction from the Iranian Embassy in India. Similarly, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament Kangana Ranaut recently withdrew a tweet after instructions from her party. She had asked her 2.9 million (29 lakh) followers on X why the American President had told Apple바카라�s CEO, Tim Cook, not to expand iPhone manufacturing in India. Then, comparing Prime Minister Narendra Modi favourably with Trump, she had written: 바카라�This is personal jealousy or diplomatic insecurity?바카라�

On May 15, five days after the conclusion of Operation Sindoor, sudden calls were raised to boycott Turkiye. Promoted by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch, trolls amplified its call. The country came under attack from both Hindutva organisations and hyper-nationalist mobs, who accused it of having supplied arms to Pakistan바카라�arms it is said to have deployed in the recent skirmishes. This rhetoric reached a point where private travel companies halted tour bookings to Turkiye and universities such as Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia put on hold Memorandums of Understanding with Turkish educational institutions.

바카라�Fascinatingly, the trolls are upset with Turkiye and want trade restrictions against it바카라�not China, which is known to supply far more arms to Pakistan,바카라� says M. Reyaz, who teaches at the department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Aliah University, Kolkata. 바카라�These incidents바카라�Turkiye and Misri바카라�reflect the upset feelings within the right-wing ecosystem. It바카라�s a manifestation of the anger against the government, but they are making a scapegoat of Misri. Trolling also is a way of channelising anger, so people never demand accountability,바카라� he says.

So, does the buck stop elsewhere바카라�perhaps not at Misri, Turkiye, or Iran? If social media trolls attack a top government official, or demand escalation of the conflict with Pakistan, is it, along with telecasting misinformation, not adversely affecting national interest, or is their doing so acceptable for some reason?

According to the MeitY spokesperson: 바카라�Our priority is to halt false and misleading information regarding India that has a viral potential on social media, and is seen by Indians. Even if we presume that there was such information about Pakistan and its losses; that바카라�s the responsibility of Pakistan to control. That바카라�s the law of war at work.바카라�

It바카라�s a slightly difficult logic to follow, since, for instance, Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif바카라�s Sky News interview, admitting that Islamabad had backed terrorist groups, went viral in India and internationally. 바카라�The same thing applies to India바카라�online content crosses borders, so what beams on TV news channels here reaches the world,바카라� says Gagan Jain, Chief Technology Officer at Cyber Safe, a Bengaluru-based information security firm. This is why many Indians are calling the trolls a security risk themselves, for demanding war and weighing into foreign policy matters.

Conflicts can whip up a heady mix of nationalist rhetoric anywhere but the context can make all the difference. 바카라�In India, the population isn바카라�t opposing the government, unlike the situation in, say, the United States during the Vietnam War, when American people had turned against their government over the violence, injuries and huge losses. However, where the media stokes ultranationalist sentiment, like in India of late, you cannot restore sanity easily바카라�the TRPs depend on that not happening,바카라� says Srinivas Kodali, a Hyderabad-based researcher and advocate for open data and cyber security standards.

TV news presented actions taken by the armed forces in highly emotive language, sought retributive action against Pakistan, and claimed more injuries across the border than were delivered바카라�far in excess of what satisfied the Indian government바카라�s strategic goals. The biggest victim in this process became TV news itself, which lost the little credibility it had. 바카라�Now, we바카라�re at a point where unless news becomes not-for-profit, viewers won바카라�t believe it,바카라� says Kodali.

The crisis partly arises from the latest technological enhancements in warfare, replete with drones, missiles and other lethal flying objects바카라�TV news seems to be imitating drone camera footage, blurring the border between the two. 바카라�Wars may be televised, but war and conflict are not movies,바카라� says Kodali, suggesting that makeshift studios resembling military war rooms are not real, and shouldn바카라�t pretend to be.

Besides, media content has a psychological effect. If people can be made to imagine the destruction of Karachi Port, then, logically, they can be convinced that the government has fulfilled its promise of unprecedented action against Pakistan after the Pahalgam terrorist attack바카라�although, in reality, the port was never destroyed.

바카라�If you start feeding the online mob with such hyper-nationalist information, you cannot suddenly stop, or there will be a frenzy. The bottom line is that you cannot control the mob, as we바카라�re realising after recent events,바카라� says Kodali.

According to cyber security experts, another complication to the scenario was the mass creation of social media accounts, starting on day one of Operation Sindoor, with many of them indicating their origin in Pakistan. This trend picked up alarmingly in the next couple of days as accounts purporting to be of Indian military staff바카라�people impersonating army generals and so on바카라�mushroomed.

바카라�Such accounts were sending absolutely incorrect reports about drone attacks, missiles falling, and so on. That launched the social media competition [between India and Pakistan],바카라� says Jain. It set off a chain reaction: when people realised on 7 May that TV news was unreliable, they shifted to social media. 바카라�But social media already had people spreading misinformation, so things snowballed,바카라� he says.

바카라�Of course, now, people are fighting this, including fact-checkers, and things will return to normal,바카라� he says, adding that the government바카라�s regular press conferences also helped cool tempers.

But in the process, has India바카라�s soft power, its goodwill, been eroded? Incidents like Arya or calls against Turkiye show that social media and TV news can have a negative outcome, especially when war hysteria is whipped up, including by the ruling party. That started when the name of a military operation was emotively packaged and made into a spectacle, effectively burying questions: Who were the four terrorists who gunned down the tourists? What is the current security situation in Pahalgam? In the end, Operation Sindoor wasn바카라�t just a military episode바카라�it was a mirror held up to the nation, in which it saw trolls.

Pragya Singh is senior assistant editor, Outlook. She is based in Delhi

This article is part of Outlook바카라�s 1 June 2025 issue, 'Gated Neighbourhood', which examines the state of diplomacy, media, and democracy in the wake of the ceasefire. It appeared in print as 'The Troll Tax.'