Between Borders and Lies: Fact-Checkers on Navigating the India-Pakistan Conflict

In the wake of the most intense India-Pakistan escalation in two decades, experts are still trying to make sense of the role that the information war played in the physical one. In this episode, Tech Policy Press Associate Editor Ramsha Jahangir speaks to two experts from India and Pakistan who tirelessly navigated the deluge of rumor and disinformation during the crisis, and who came away with thoughts about the role of social media platforms and the incentives they create, particularly in times of conflict:

• Pratik Sinha, co-founder and editor at Alt News—one of India’s major fact-checking websites, and 
• Asad Baig, founder of Media Matters for Democracy—a non-profit focused on media literacy and development in Pakistan.

Sinha and Baig reflect on how the India-Pakistan conflict played out across digital platforms—and how it revealed a deeper, more dangerous dysfunction in the information ecosystem.