Young cricketer Arshdeep Singh faced vitriolic trolling and serious propaganda attack in the wake of India’s defeat against arch rival Pakistan at the Asia Cup 2022. The pacer, a rising star of the national cricket team, dropped a crucial catch in the match. Soon a hate campaign took over Twitter where he was even linked to the separatist Khalistan agenda.
Troll army cited Arshdeep’s Wikipedia page to embolden their misleading and malicious tweets against him. His Wikipedia page was tampered with and false information had been added.
Details about tampering
Arshdeep Singh’s Wikipedia page was vandalised by some internet users and some Indian fans also fell into the trap and became a part of the dangerous propaganda. Screenshots of the Wikipedia page were shared by trolls on Twitter which showed Arshdeep’s name edited to “Major Arshdeep Singh Langra”.
It was then changed again a minute later to "Major Arshdeep Singh Bajwa". The words India and Indian were replaced with Khalistan and Khalistani. Several random changes were also made to the statistics of Arshdeep enlisted on the Wikipedia page. The page did not display the misleading information for long as Wikipedia editors reversed the changes within 15 minutes.
What edit history details are revealed?
While the exact identity of the miscreant is not known, the edit history of the Wikipedia page revealed that the user behind the vandalism was unregistered. The internet protocol (IP) address used is 39.41.171.125.
The location details of the user were shown as Country: Pakistan, State/ Region: Punjab and City as Murree, a mountain resort town, located in the Pir Panjal Range at a distance of just 30 kms from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. The Internet Service Provider (ISP) the page showed for the edits was Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).
The vandalism of Arshdeep’s Wikipedia page was taken seriously by the government which took note of the act and pulled up the company for lack of due diligence in letting misleading information be displayed on the platform.
Such hate campaigns are not new as another Indian cricketer, Mohammad Shami was also the target of a malicious agenda after India’s loss to Pakistan at the ICC World Cup in 2021.
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