DG ISPR initiates crackdown against fake armed forces accounts on social media

ISLAMABAD: The Director General Inter-Services Public Relations (DG ISPR) Major General Asif Ghafoor forwarded a list of over 250 social media accounts using the names of Pakistan’s Armed Forces to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for a crackdown.

The FIA has, in turn, notified the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) regarding the accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Youtube portraying themselves to be operating on behalf of the armed forces using the names of the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Navy.

These accounts being operated by unauthorised personnel and individuals who had assumed the role of speaking on behalf of the armed forces had been gaining attention on social media giving the misleading impression that statements posted from these accounts was the official statement of the Armed Forces of Pakistan.

The steps taken by the ISPR against the over 250 accounts including 45 Twitters accounts, 94 Facebook pages, 101 Youtube accounts and 15 Instagram accounts has quashed the criticism from certain quarters that had assumed statements on the said accounts to be the official statements of the armed forces.