1 week Ago By Tarun Tapan Bhuyan
The brutal Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir left the nation grieving for the lives lost. A list of victims which included army veterans, newlyweds and young hopefuls exploring the meadows after an hour-long trek from Pahalgam. What started as a winter-station escapade turned into a massacre.
But while India mourned, a different war was being waged — one not with guns or grenades, but hashtags and deepfakes. Within hours, biased Pakistani social media and anti-Indian interest groups turned the tragedy into a digital battlefield, flooded with claims that the massacre was staged, scripted, or simply a “false flag” act. The distortion was swift , the posts aggressive , and the impact, particularly on young digital natives, unsettling .
Gen-Z, my generation, is the most online yet the most emotionally exposed. We pride ourselves on being " woke " (once a derogatory label we now wear proudly to tell the world that we are sensitive, we feel, we are vulnerable, and proud of it, empowered by it), digitally literate, and globally aware. But in moments like this — moments of national trauma — we’re caught in the crossfire between fact and fiction, and we don’t even realize how deeply it affects us.
I deeply feel that unlike the generations before us, who were disassociated and divorced from global events, we on the other hands suffer from overexposure . Hashtags like #IndianFalseFlag or #ModiExposed may trend with viral ferocity, but behind them lies a darker story: one of psychological manipulation, nation-shaming, and strategic misinformation designed not just to confuse but to erode trust in leadership, security forces, national institutions and the media itself. The fundamental problem with overexposure is an eclectic variety of sources, political biases and opinions, not all verifiable.
Social media “news sites” are quickly becoming propaganda and quasi-interest groups which are tailored not to inform but to erode trust and individualistic thinking and fuel brainwashing. In the case of Pahalgam, the line between propaganda and parody blurred disturbingly fast. AI-generated videos mocked grieving victims, and photoshopped images of the Prime Minister in chains circulated like satire — only they weren’t funny.
They were meant to delegitimise real suffering . For teenagers and students scrolling late at night, trying to make sense of what's happening, such content isn't just harmful — it's dangerously disorienting. It would be biased not to say that the same happened along Indian lines, too.
What started as an issue on state-sponsored terrorism quickly turned communal , bordering dangerously close to the precipice of religion with alarming undertones and dangerous ramifications. As students, many of us turn to X (formerly Twitter), Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts for “news.” And while social media is a powerful tool for expression and solidarity, and freedom of speech, it’s also a weapon when wielded wrongly.
It’s true: Anyone can say anything. What’s a fact? What’s fiction? That’s a personal take . And that’s what is so dangerous.
There’s no objectivity left anymore , a core tenet in media. It’s left to the reader to decide, a decision most teenagers creating new, formative and untried political opinions aren’t ready to make as of yet. The Pahalgam misinformation campaign reminds us of something urgent: our digital instincts aren’t enough anymore.
We need a digital conscience . So, how do we build it? Don’t react — verify. That viral post with a million views isn’t the truth just because it’s trending.
Reverse-image search. Check credible outlets. And read the actual newspaper.
Pause, think: Is this exaggerated? Or am I just overthinking? Know the agenda. Every post is authored. Every author has an angle.
Every media house has a bias. Sometimes, it's not journalism — it's warfare. Identify, explore biases and separate fact from fiction and think about the biases you align with.
Talk about it. Misinformation thrives in echo chambers. Conversations — in classrooms, clubs, and student groups — are the only way to challenge and decode what we’re seeing online.
Nothing false sustains for long; it can be tackled only with real conversations. Respect grief. No meme or edit is ever worth mocking the dead or the grieving.
Sensitivity is not optional — it’s human. I often hear my friends ask, “How do we know what’s true anymore?” And honestly, it’s a valid question in 2025. Truth now lives somewhere between a breaking tweet and a breaking heart.
But maybe that’s where we come in — Gen-Z is not just a target of misinformation; we can also be its antidote. The archnemesis of political conspiratorialism. Let’s be more than consumers of content.
Let’s be curators of conscience. (Tarun Tapan Bhuyan is a student studying in SAI International School. Views expressed are his own.
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