As thousands of farmers march to Delhi, facing police resistance at the Punjab-Haryana border, their supporters have joined forces on social media, leveraging generative AI to counter online smear campaigns and promote their narratives.
An analysis by India Today’s Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) desk has captured coordinated campaigns on X (formerly Twitter), with farmer supporters accusing the governments of Haryana and the Centre of police high-handedness and an authoritarian approach.
Meanwhile, pro-government accounts label the protesters as furthering a politically motivated agenda ahead of the elections and demand harsh police action.
IDENTICAL POSTS
The campaigns on both sides of the divide feature identical posts on X (formerly known as Twitter). Users propagating a particular message often do not change a single word or hashtag.
For example, a tweet by Delhi-based “social media activist” Ravi Bhadoria – followed by top BJP leadership – about the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime was copied and pasted by dozens of users on February 14.
Many other tweets – including those seeking to discredit protesters as genuine “farmers,” criticising the Punjab Police for not stopping the march within the state, and calling for harsh police action against protesters – were the same, albeit with minor changes like variations in hashtags.
Similarly, hundreds of tweets posted by pro-farmer accounts, reviewed by India Today, were strikingly identical, highlighting the protesters’ resolve, criticising the government, comparing PM Narendra Modi with the infamous General (Reginald) Dyer, and documenting the Haryana Police’s excesses at the Sanghu border with Punjab.
Some of their copycat posts simply propagated farm leaders’ speeches and boasted about the pride of Jats and Sikhs – the dominant farming communities in Haryana and Punjab.
ONLINE BATTLES RAGE ON
The chatter around the farmers’ protest began to gain steam on X on February 9, four days before several farmer groups formally launched their march to Delhi to press the Central government to fulfill certain demands, including a legal guarantee for MSP.
Since February 9, popular English hashtags like #FarmersProtest2024, #farmerprotests2024, #KisanAndolan, #FarmerProtest2024, #FarmersProtest2, and #DilliChalo have cumulatively been mentioned in nearly 2 million X posts and replies, amassing more than 8 million engagements, according to the analysis.
Among them, #FarmersProtest2024 alone garnered 3.9 million engagements, followed by #FarmerProtest2024 with 1.7 million, and #KisanAndolan with 1.3 million engagements on X, as per data from social media analytics firm Talkwalker.
Meanwhile, X has removed several offensive hashtags used by critics of the protests. Two such hashtags, whose names are withheld due to their hateful nature, appeared in several posts reviewed during the analysis but led to blank pages when searched using X’s search function. However, Talkwalker data shows that both hashtags featured in at least 51 tweets and replies each.
GENERATIVE AI FUELS ONLINE DRIVE
Social media activists have sought to exploit the generative capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) to spread their message effectively, adding a novel dimension to their campaign. As the farmers attempt to breach police defences about 200km from Delhi, the virtual world of AI has already sent farmers inside the national capital, depicting their protest at some of its most iconic locations: India Gate, Red Fort, and the Parliament.
In AI-generated images shared by farm activists, protesters are portrayed as peacefully walking along an unpaved road, staging protests with their tractors while sandwiched between layers of barbed wires and barricades, distributing food to policemen, and unfurling the Nishan Sahib – the holy symbol of Sikhism – on the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi.
Some videos have also been created by mixing images and voices generated by AI.
The technology has also been used to make disrespectful references to the protesters.