Lies Land Before Missiles

Three girls died in a knife attack in Southport, England, on July 29, 2024. Within hours, a false name for the suspect spread online, along with claims that he was Muslim and had arrived on a small boat. By the next day the name had more than 30,000 mentions on X, an Institute for Strategic Dialogue analyst said. Rioters attacked a mosque and injured 53 police officers. The rumor had no basis in fact, and it still moved crowds.

Security planners still tend to picture threats as things that cross a border carrying a flag or a warhead. A fabricated post needs neither. It costs nothing to produce and reaches millions before an editor or a police spokesman has finished drafting a denial. The correction arrives to a smaller audience, and by then the anger has found a target and the story has hardened into belief. The damage compounds over time, because people fooled twice stop trusting any institution that speaks to them.

South Asia has seen the same mechanics at higher stakes. After Pahalgam incident on April 22, 2025, India and Pakistan fought for four days in May. BOOM, an Indian fact-checking outlet, said 69 of the 101 fact-checks it published that month concerned the conflict. Old footage from Israel, Palestine, Iran and Sudan was relabeled as strikes on South Asian cities. Deepfakes showed officials on both sides admitting defeat. A fake clip of U.S. President Donald Trump vowing to “destroy Pakistan” circulated on May 8. Forged government notices followed. AFP fact-checkers also found media outlets in India amplifying false claims of victory, which experts said worsened tensions. When two nuclear-armed neighbors trade strikes, a forged concession speech can change what a commander, a minister or a crowd decides to do next.

Pakistan responded first through law. Parliament amended the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act in January 2025, dissolved the Federal Investigation Agency’s cybercrime wing and created the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency, known as the NCCIA. The amendment also set up a social media regulator and a tribunal, and it capped the penalty for spreading false information at three years in prison. When the May fighting began, the National Cyber Emergency Response Team warned of rising misinformation and cyberattacks through email, social media, QR codes and messaging apps. An official told Global Voices that 670 cases had been filed under the law by June 2025.

Recently, the agency announced its next step. A spokesperson said special units now operate in all regions to monitor cyberspace. “There is a zero-tolerance policy against fake news and anti-state propaganda,” NCCIA Director General Ali Nasir Rizvi said. He also directed more citizen-friendly complaint and verification systems.

The logic holds. Pakistan faces terrorist violence at home and a hostile information environment on its eastern border, and Arab News noted that misinformation has repeatedly circulated around terrorist attacks and counterterrorism measures. Other governments reach the same conclusion. After Southport, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said those involved in the riots would face the “full force” of the law, and officials examined where the online posts originated. No government is obliged to watch a rumor become a riot.

Rizvi’s promised verification system is the obvious place to start. After Southport and after May 2025, the question is how states will manage to overcome this problem. Pakistan has taken a step in the right direction for that.