(Dis)information warfare and the right to know: lessons from Operation Sindoor – Lavya Bhasin and Kanishk Goyal

In May this year, India and Pakistan engaged in a brief but intense military confrontation, codenamed Operation Sindoor, following the terrorist attack on tourists in the valley of Pahalgam, Jammu & Kashmir. During the same, the digital sphere was also engulfed by a surge of misleading information. Almost 15% operational time was spent battling fake narratives and disinformation by the Indian Army.

Much of this misinformation and disinformation was (wrongfully) defended by people on the internet, influencers and journalists as strategic information warfare which has become a recognised component of modern conflict or the art of war.

Through this blog, we note some instances of mis/disinformation during Operation Sindoor, and explore the distinction between legitimate information warfare and mere disinformation. We argue that when this boundary is blurred, it endangers a citizen’s fundamental ‘right to know’, which is a recognised human right. Since in the present context, disinformation was amplified by news media and social media platforms, we advocate for the relevancy of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). These principles aim to bring even private entities into human rights frameworks, and provide a normative foundation for holding media houses accountable for preserving public access to truthful information.

Additionally, we argue that the Indian Government’s response to such false claims of information warfare was not adequate or pointed, and in trying to curb misinformation and disinformation, the Government ended up taking disproportionate measures curbing speech, which played a further role in compromise of the right to know.

While there is existing scholarship on information warfare and regulation of disinformation from the perspective of international law, there remain significant gaps in (i) analysing the conflict between (dis)information warfare and the right to know, and (ii) holding private media responsible for human right violations. This blog aims to address the same.

 Contextualising differences between information warfare and disinformation

During Operation Sindoor, both India and Pakistan engaged in exchanges of false information. For example, posts on platforms such as X asserted that Pakistan’s Air Force had been decimated, or that India had captured Karachi’s port. These very posts later went on to become breaking news on news channels, where TV anchors aired video-game footage and old war clips as proof of India’s dominance. In Pakistan, an image of a MiG-29 crash from  2021 was falsely presented as a downed Indian Rafale.

Surprisingly, these posts were defended as information warfare – where Indians called for amplification of news – true or false, if it harms Pakistan, and suppression of news – even if true, if it harms India. Accounts with larger following even praised misinformation, and condemned fact-checking efforts since the same went against the art of war. However, as explained by experts themselves, information warfare is the “emotional aspect of communication, where information involving psychological components is delivered to a target audience to bring a shift in its outlook”, and the same is targeted and strategic, not ipso facto disinformation and propaganda.

This is where it becomes crucial to distinguish information warfare from mere misinformation or disinformation. Misinformation refers to inaccurate or false content that is shared without the intent to mislead and disinformation involves the deliberate creation and spread of falsehoods with the specific aim of deception. Information warfare, however, operates on a different level. It is not defined solely by veracity, but by the strategic use of information to influence perception and narrative. Unlike casual misinformation or isolated disinformation, information warfare is coordinated, intentional, and directed toward achieving geopolitical or psychological objectives.

We argue that the widespread circulation of mis/disinformation during Operation Sindoor was not coordinated information warfare, as there is no evidence of a centralised directive shaping these narratives. Instead, Government agencies repeatedly issued advisories urging citizens to verify news before sharing, suggesting efforts to counter rather than promote misinformation.

Thus, we outline the two problems briefly that arose when mis/disinformation was spread clothed as information warfare: (i) lack of care on the part of media houses, and (ii) the disproportionate state action in countering mis/disinformation, both of which lead to a compromise of the right to know.

Compromise of the right to know at the hands of media houses

There has been extensive focus on the rights of media houses. However, a glaring gap in this conversation is regarding the responsibilities of media houses, especially when it comes to enjoyment of human rights of its audiences. Although holding them accountable can be challenging due to competing rights like the right to freedom of expression, it remains essential to do so, in order to safeguard the human right to know.

Evidences presented in the section above not only show that Indian news media and social media platforms such as Twitter, X, Facebook etc. became major contributors to fake news during Operation Sindoor, but also that they did not take note of the spreading of posts which advocated for (dis)information warfare.

Such inaction by platforms points to non-accountability of adverse human rights impacts, the scale of which is not speculative. According to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2023, nearly 49% of Indian internet users rely on social media as their primary source of news. Moreover, studies from the MIT Media Lab have found that false information spreads six times faster than factual content on platforms like X and Facebook. This is largely due to algorithmic amplification, where engagement-driven models prioritize sensational and emotionally charged posts, regardless of their veracity. Such factors show the urgent need to hold media houses and social media platforms responsible for human rights impacts.

One way to hold them responsible is to endorse the UNGPs with more gravity in India. The UNGPs in part II state that businesses have a corporate responsibility to protect human rights, which exists independently of the States’ ability to fulfil their own human rights obligations. Principle 13 therein requires that business enterprises avoid causing or contributing to ‘adverse human rights impacts’ by their own activities, and address such impacts when they occur. Moreover, principle 15 requires that they must also conduct human rights due diligence to identify such impacts and take steps to remediate the same. Although recognising the UNGPs, India has also launched its own National Guidelines for Responsible Business Conduct (NGRBC), the scale of implementation of the same with respect to media houses is scant and ineffective as of now.

Disproportionate state action to combat mis/disinformation

Apart from actions and non-actions of media and social media platforms, there was compromise of the right to know because of disproportionate actions taken by the government to curb fake news. We argue that the at the time of proliferation of false calls for information warfare in Operation Sindoor, the State failed to pointedly address disinformation proliferated in the name of information warfare.

Though the Government swung its fact checking units into action to battle false claims, a recent RTI filed by Internet Freedom Foundation shows that governments are implementing Fact Checking units centrally as well as in various states without transparency, accountability, or uniformity. Moreover, the Bombay High Court only recently struck down section 3(b)(i)(v) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2023 which designated the Press Information Bureau as the Fact Checking Unit.

During Operation Sindoor, evidences also show that the Government resorted to disproportionate measures such as indiscriminate censorship, blanket bans on content, and non-objective takedown of “anti-national” posts. ‘X’ received an executive order to block over 8000 accounts without individualized assessment or justification for blocking. Such form of censorship had the effect of not only censoring and suppressing existing expression, but also imposing prior restraint on free speech. This depicts something more than lack of action against (dis)information warfare on the part of the government – a lack of a national policy itself; to deal proportionately with such instances.

Conclusion and Suggestions

Information warfare in this digital age is here to stay. Therefore, we must take actions to separate legitimate information warfare from mis/disinformation. Confusing these concepts not only weakens public trust, but also gravely impacts the right to know. As seen during Operation Sindoor, the spread of unverified content disguised as patriotic narrative, and the State’s disproportionate response in the name of national security left citizens trapped between misinformation and censorship.

To remediate, first, India must clearly define and distinguish between information warfare, misinformation, and disinformation in both policy and law. If fact-checking units are used to tackle these, then their position must be clarified, after the Bombay HC order. This is because although the central government has appealed this order, as of now, FCU’s still remain unconstitutional in India. Further, state action must always be proportionate to the legitimate aim sought to be achieved, as per all human rights regimes in the world. Thus, caution must lie against misplaced censorship which makes facts, and the right to know attached therewith collateral damage.

Second, media houses and digital platforms must be held accountable to internationally recognised human rights standards, particularly the right to know, as envisaged under the UNGPs and India’s own NGRBCs. They must also be asked to conduct human rights due diligence periodically, especially at times like these when a virtual war was as prominent as a real one.

Third, India should take cues from other jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom and Canada, that have frameworks to regulate media conduct during conflict, in order to balance national security concerns with press freedom and public interest. India currently faces a lacuna on this, leaving space for disinformation, (dis)information warfare and arbitrary state control. This must be filled with prospective policies that promote public resilience against viral falsehoods, especially those disguised as information warfare.

Lavya Bhasin and Kanishk Goyal are students at the National Law Institute University, Bhopal.