ISLAMABAD – India’s worldwide network of as many as 265 fake media outletstargeting Pakistani interests has been unearthed by the European Union (EU)Disinfo Lab.

The network was designed by New Delhi to influence the EU and the UN byrepeatedly criticising Pakistan. The fake media outlets operate in 65countries across the world.

The fake media network serves following interests of Indian lobby:

1) Influence international institutions and elected representatives withcoverage of specific events and demonstrations;

2) Provide NGOs with useful press material to reinforce their credibilityand thus be impactful;

3) Add several layers of media outlets that quote and republish oneanother, making it harder for the reader to trace the manipulation, and inturn (sometimes) offer a “mirage” of international support;

4) Influence public perceptions on Pakistan by multiplying iterations ofthe same content available on search engines.

EU DisinfoLablinkquicklydiscovered that EP Today is managed by Indian stakeholders, with ties to alarge network of think tanks, NGOs, and companies from the SrivastavaGroup. EU DisinfoLab also found that the IP address of the Srivastava Groupis also home to the obscure online media “New Delhi Times” and theInternational Institute for Non-Aligned Studies (IINS), which are all basedat the same address in New Delhi, India.

Using OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) techniques, EU DisinfoLab continuedits investigation into this network, and this led them to Geneva, where theUN Refugee Agency has its headquarters.

There, it was discovered timesofgeneva.com – an online “newspaper” that is“approaching 35 years in business”. Strangely enough, Times of Genevapublishes the same type of content as EP Today and produces videos coveringevents and demonstrations criticising Pakistan’s role in the Kashmirconflict.

EUDisinfoLab found hard evidence that both EP Today and Times of Genevahave extremely strong ties with a network of NGOs and think tanks, such asthe European Organization for Pakistani Minorities (EOPM), and PakistaniWomen’s Human Rights Organization. Specifically, the websites of these NGOsand think tanks are hosted on the same servers and/or staff have worked forone of these previous organisations while publishing articles for EP Today.

EU DisinfoLab also proved that the two influence networks (Brussels andGeneva) were interconnected by discovering links between websiteregistration addresses, email addresses, and domain names.