Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
A 24-min watch for anyone interested, I found this to be a great account of the siege of kabul, from what I've been exposed to so far. Engaging and helpful graphics as well.

 

shakahislop

Well-known member
have a feeling some of my mates will be fighting there. bit of a weird thing to think about. has been basically impossible to find out what's going on in terms of who's winning and losing the fighting.

actually one interesting thing that's happened since everyone suddenly became interested in afghanistan again a few weeks ago, is that my Twitter is full of mis/disinformation. when no-one gave a shit there was hardly any of that kind of thing. but now there are full on propaganda accounts all over the shop, and it's suddenly become a lot harder to know what's going on. it's not helped by the departure of a lot of journalists from the country, and absolutely no news seeming to come out of the provinces beyond kabul.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Where do you think the accounts are coming from?
i honestly have no idea. at a guess, based on knowing nothing about this kind of thing at all, it must be pretty obvious to all governments by now that Twitter and Facebook etc are ways of controlling narratives and so on and so forth, and I guess it's a strategy open to anyone to use. so possibly some part of the Pakistani state for the more pro-Taliban aspects of it, or the Taliban itself, but could equally be a lot of other actors, I don't have any way of knowing.
 

sufi

lala
i honestly have no idea. at a guess, based on knowing nothing about this kind of thing at all, it must be pretty obvious to all governments by now that Twitter and Facebook etc are ways of controlling narratives and so on and so forth, and I guess it's a strategy open to anyone to use. so possibly some part of the Pakistani state for the more pro-Taliban aspects of it, or the Taliban itself, but could equally be a lot of other actors, I don't have any way of knowing.
I noticed that about the misinfo, also with Tigray
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
i honestly have no idea. at a guess, based on knowing nothing about this kind of thing at all, it must be pretty obvious to all governments by now that Twitter and Facebook etc are ways of controlling narratives and so on and so forth, and I guess it's a strategy open to anyone to use. so possibly some part of the Pakistani state for the more pro-Taliban aspects of it, or the Taliban itself, but could equally be a lot of other actors, I don't have any way of knowing.
So is it all pro-Taliban, or a mixture, or what?
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
So is it all pro-Taliban, or a mixture, or what?
it's mostly pro-taliban from what i can tell. but on the other hand, there are also a load of tweets on my feed this morning saying that panjshir is being bombed by the Pakistan airforce, which from what I can tell isn't actually true. my guess is that side is more a genuine reaction of normal people (spreading rumours that they believe but which aren't actually true) rather than anything more organized.
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
one interesting development on this is that my feeds are full of people who I know are not bots, who are convinced that Pakistan has launched airstrikes or drone strikes on the resistance militia in Panjshir, and are saying this all over Facebook and Twitter. As far as I can tell, this doesn't seem to be true, or at least none of the more reliable sources are reporting on it yet.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
one interesting development on this is that my feeds are full of people who I know are not bots, who are convinced that Pakistan has launched airstrikes or drone strikes on the resistance militia in Panjshir, and are saying this all over Facebook and Twitter. As far as I can tell, this doesn't seem to be true, or at least none of the more reliable sources are reporting on it yet.
Is it possible that India has a hand in this, do you think?
 

shakahislop

Well-known member
Is it possible that India has a hand in this, do you think?
It is possible. I guess I never see India as a particularly big player in Afghanistan, though it is for sure a minor one. I know a lot of panjshiris and more or less everyone I know was aligned with the old government as well, so all of this 'pakistan is launching airstrikes' stuff is coming from people rather than bots, from what I can tell. whether or not India is launching this kind of online operation with regards to issues in Afghanistan - I guess I don't think so, but I have no idea really
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It is possible. I guess I never see India as a particularly big player in Afghanistan, though it is for sure a minor one. I know a lot of panjshiris and more or less everyone I know was aligned with the old government as well, so all of this 'pakistan is launching airstrikes' stuff is coming from people rather than bots, from what I can tell. whether or not India is launching this kind of online operation with regards to issues in Afghanistan - I guess I don't think so, but I have no idea really
I didn't mean with respect to direct action in Afghanistan - more that they might jump at the chance to make Pakistan look like a dick on social media.
 

luka

Well-known member
shaka hislop are you one of those people who has been on a gap year for the last 15 years? building wells in india etc
 
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