EU Disinfo Lab, a non profit based in Brussels has criticised ANI (Asian News International), a popular Indian news agency for allegedly using quotes and statements from made-up think tanks and experts. The organisation specialises in weeding out disinformation campaigns.
In their new report, “Bad Sources: How Indian news agency ANI quoted sources that do not exist”, they pulled up the organisation for referencing personalities and groups which were allegedly made up.
The EU DisinfoLab research, released on Thursday, is the third in a series of reports on a purported Delhi-based Srivastava Group-amplified Indian influence network based on fictitious NGOs and experts that were published in 2019 and 2020.
The most recent investigation focuses on the website of the International Forum for Rights and Security (IFFRAS), a think tank with Canadian roots. Around 200 times between May 2021 and January 2023, ANI cited IFFRAS.
Though IFFRAS was dissolved in 2014, its website remained online and was being updated. EU DisinfoLab said that the same IP address hosted the IFFRAS website and other websites from the Srivastava group.
The report said that when it tried to trace the speakers mentioned on the website, they discovered that they were mostly non-existent.
“Our guess is that the sole purpose of the IFFRAS is to produce content that can be covered by ANI and then republished widely throughout the Indian press,” said the report.
The EU DisinfoLab researchers also looked into other foreign experts at ‘think tanks’ that were mentioned by ANI.
They discovered the Policy Research Group’s (POREG) “geopolitical specialists” were frequently cited by ANI on topics including Chinese foreign policy and Pakistan’s army doctrines.
According to the study, despite repeated attempts to reach these experts—names like “James Duglous Crickton,” “Magda Lipan,” or “Ms. Valentin Popescu,” depending on the spelling—they did not appear to be available.
A third organisation that ANI began quoting findings from in 2021, was the Center of Political and Foreign Affairs (CPFA), a research group with French roots that is legitimately registered in Hong Kong. However, ANI was also disseminating information that EU DisinfoLab “could not attribute to genuine individuals” in addition to the CPFA team’s reliable findings.
The latest EU DisinfoLab report was released in conjunction with the “Story Killers” project to investigate the disinformation-for-hire-industry. Coordinated by French non-profit Forbidden Stories, the project hopes to continue the work of slain journalist Gauri Lankesh.
