#FactCheck - Digitally Altered Image Falsely Shows World Bank President Ajay Banga Holding Khalistani Flag
Executive Summary
A digitally manipulated image of World Bank President Ajay Banga has been circulating on social media, falsely portraying him as holding a Khalistani flag. The image was shared by a Pakistan-based X (formerly Twitter) user, who also incorrectly identified Banga as the President of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), thereby fuelling misleading speculation that he supports the Khalistani movement against India.
The Claim
On February 5, an X user with the handle @syedAnas0101010 posted an image allegedly showing Ajay Banga holding a Khalistani flag. The user misidentified him as the IMF President and captioned the post, “IMF president sending signals to INDIA.” The post quickly gained traction, amplifying false narratives and political speculation. Here is the link and archive link to the post, along with a screenshot:
Fact Check:
To verify the authenticity of the image, the CyberPeace Fact Check Desk conducted a detailed research . The image was first subjected to a reverse image search using Google Lens, which led to a Reuters news report published on June 13, 2023. The original photograph, captured by Reuters photojournalist Jonathan Ernst, showed Ajay Banga arriving at the World Bank headquarters in Washington, D.C., on June 2, 2023, marking his first day in office. In the authentic image, Banga is seen holding a coffee cup, not a flag.
Further analysis confirmed that the viral image had been digitally altered to replace the coffee cup with a Khalistani flag, thereby misrepresenting the context and intent of the original photograph. Here is the link to the report, along with a screenshot.
To strengthen the findings, the altered image was also analysed using the Hive Moderation AI detection tool. The tool’s assessment indicated a high likelihood that the image contained AI-generated or manipulated elements, reinforcing the conclusion that the image was not genuine. Below is a screenshot of the result.
Conclusion
The viral image claiming to show World Bank President Ajay Banga holding a Khalistani flag is fake. The photograph was digitally manipulated to spread misinformation and provoke political speculation. In reality, the original Reuters image from June 2023 shows Banga holding a coffee cup during his arrival at the World Bank headquarters. The claim that he supports the Khalistani movement is false and misleading.
Related Blogs
Introduction
A Reuters investigation has uncovered an elephant in the room regarding Meta Platforms' internal measures to address online fraud and illicit advertising. The confidential documents that Reuters reviewed disclosed that Meta was planning to generate approximately 10% of its 2024 revenue, i.e., USD 16 billion, from ads related to scams and prohibited goods. The findings point out a disturbing paradox: on the one hand, Meta is a vocal advocate for digital safety and platform integrity, while on the other hand, the internal logs of the company indicate the existence of a very large area allowing the shunning of fraudulent advertisement activities that exploit users throughout the world.
The Scale of the Problem
Internal Meta projections show that its platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, are displaying a staggering 15 billion scam ads per day combined. The advertisements include deceitful e-commerce promotions, fake investment schemes, counterfeit medical products, and unlicensed gambling platforms.
Meta has developed sophisticated detection tools, but even then, the system does not catch the advertisers until they are 95% certain to be fraudsters. By having at least that threshold for removing an ad, the company is unlikely to lose much money. As a result, instead of turning the fraud adjacent advertisers down, it charges them higher ad rates, which is the strategy they call “penalty bids” internally.
Internal Acknowledgements & Business Dependence
Internal documents that date between 2021 and 2025 reveal that the financial, safety, and lobbying divisions of Meta were cognizant of the enormity of revenues generated from scams. One of the 2025 strategic papers even describes this revenue source as "violating revenue," which implies that it includes ads that are against Meta's policies regarding scams, gambling, sexual services, and misleading healthcare products.
The company's top executives consider the cost-benefit scenario of stricter enforcement. According to a 2024 internal projection, Meta's half-yearly earnings from high-risk scam ads were estimated at USD 3.5 billion, whereas regulatory fines for such violations would not exceed USD 1 billion, thus making it a tolerable trade-off from a commercial viewpoint. At the same time, the company intends to scale down scam ad revenue gradually, thus from 10.1% in 2024 to 7.3% by 2025, and 6% by 2026; however, the documents also reveal a planned slowdown in enforcement to avoid "abrupt reductions" that could affect business forecasts.
Algorithmic Amplification of Scams
One of the most alarming situations is the fact that Meta's own advertising algorithms amplify scam content. It has been reported that users who click on fraudulent ads are more likely to see other similar ads, as the platform's personalisation engine assumes user "interest."
This scenario creates a self-reinforcing feedback loop where the user engagement with scam content dictates the amount of such content being displayed. Thus, a digital environment is created which encourages deceptive engagement and consequently, user trust is eroded and systemic risk is amplified.
An internal presentation in May 2025 was said to put a number on how deeply the platform's ad ecosystem was intertwined with the global fraud economy, estimating that one-third of the scams that succeeded in the U.S. were due to advertising on Meta's platforms.
Regulatory & Legal Implications
The disclosures arrived at the same time as the US and UK governments started to closely check the company's activities more than ever before.
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is said to be looking into whether Meta has had any part in the promotion of fraudulent financial ads.
- The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that Meta’s platforms were the main sources of scams related to online payments and claimed that the amount of money lost was more than all the other social platforms combined in 2023.
Meta’s spokesperson, Andy Stone, at first denied the accusations, stating that the figures mentioned in the leak were “rough and overly-inclusive”; nevertheless, he conceded that the company’s consistent efforts toward enforcement had negatively impacted revenue and would continue to do so.
Operational Challenges & Policy Gaps
The internal documents also reveal the weaknesses in Meta's day-to-day operations when it comes to the implementation of its own policies.
- Because of the large number of employees laid off in 2023, the whole department that dealt with advertiser-brand impersonation was said to have been dissolved.
- Scam ads were categorised as a "low severity" issue, which was more of a "bad user experience" than a critical security risk.
- At the end of 2023, users were submitting around 100,000 legitimate scam reports per week, of which Meta dismissed or rejected 96%.
Human Impact: When Fraud Becomes Personal
The financial and ethical issues have tangible human consequences. The Reuters investigation documented multiple cases of individuals defrauded through hijacked Meta accounts.
One striking example involves a Canadian Air Force recruiter, whose hacked Facebook account was used to promote fake cryptocurrency schemes. Despite over a hundred user reports, Meta failed to act for weeks, during which several victims, including military colleagues, lost tens of thousands of dollars.
The case underscores not just platform negligence, but also the difficulty of law enforcement collaboration. Canadian authorities confirmed that funds traced to Nigerian accounts could not be recovered due to jurisdictional barriers, a recurring issue in transnational cyber fraud.
Ethical and Cybersecurity Implications
The research has questioned extremely important things at least from the perspective of cyber policy:
- Platform Accountability: Meta, by its practice, is giving more importance to the monetary aspect rather than the truth, and in this way, it is going against the principles of responsible digital governance.
- Transparency in Ad Ecosystems: The lack of transparency in digital advertising systems makes it very easy for dishonest actors to use automated processes with very little supervision.
- Algorithmic Responsibility: The use of algorithms that impact the visibility of misleading content and targeting can be considered the direct involvement of the algorithms in the fraud.
- Regulatory Harmonisation: The presence of different and disconnected enforcement frameworks across jurisdictions is a drawback to the efforts in dealing with cross-border cybercrime.
- Public Trust: Users’ trust in the digital world is mainly dependent on the safety level they see and the accountability of the companies.
Conclusion
Meta’s records show a very unpleasant mix of profit, laxity, and failure in the policy area concerning scam-related ads. The platform’s readiness to accept and even profit from fraudulent players, though admitting the damage they cause, calls for an immediate global rethinking of advertising ethics, regulatory enforcement, and algorithmic transparency.
With the expansion of its AI-driven operations and advertising networks, protecting the users of Meta must evolve from being just a public relations goal to being a core business necessity, thus requiring verifiable accountability measures, independent audits, and regulatory oversight. It is an undeniable fact that there are billions of users who count on Meta’s platforms for their right to digital safety, which is why this right must be respected and enforced rather than becoming optional.
References
- https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
- https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/leaked-docs-claim-meta-made-16-billion-from-scam-ads-even-after-deleting-134-million-of-them-2815183-2025-11-07
Introduction
The most recent cable outages in the Red Sea, which caused traffic to slow down throughout the Middle East, South Asia, and even India, Pakistan and several parts of the UAE, like Etilasat and Du networks, also experienced comparable internet outages, serve as a reminder that the physical backbone of the internet is both routine and extremely important. Cloud platforms reroute traffic, e-commerce stalls, financial transactions stutter, and governments face the fragility of something they long believed to be seamless when systems like SMW4 and IMEWE malfunction close to Jeddah. Concerns over the susceptibility of undersea information highways have been raised by the incident. Given the ongoing conflict in the Red Sea region, where Yemen’s Houthi rebels have been waging a campaign against commercial shipping in retaliation for the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The effects are seen immediately. The argument over whether global connection is genuinely robust or just operating on borrowed time was reignited by these recent failures, which compelled key providers to reroute flows.
A geopolitical signal is what looks like a “technical glitch.” Accidents in contested waters are rarely simply accidents, and the inability to quickly assign blame highlights how brittle this ostensibly flawless digital world is.
The Paradox of Essential yet Exposed Infrastructure
This is not an isolated accident. Undersea cables, which carry more than 97% of all internet traffic worldwide, connect continents at the speed of light, and support the cloud infrastructures that contemporary societies rely on, are the brains of the digital economy., as cautioned by NATO’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. In a sense, they are our unseen electrical grid; without them, connectivity breaks down. However, they continue to be incredibly fragile in spite of their significance. Anchors and fishing gear frequently damage cables, which are no thicker than a garden hose, and they break more than a hundred times annually on average. Most faults can be swiftly fixed or relocated, but when several cuts happen in strategic areas, like the 2022 Tonga eruption or the current Red Sea crisis, nations and economies are exposed to being isolated for days.
The geopolitical risks are far more urgent. Subsea cables traverse disputed waters, land in hostile regimes, and cross oceans without regard for political boundaries. This makes them appealing for espionage, where state actors can tap or alter flows covertly, as well as sabotage, when service is interrupted to prevent access. Deliberate cable strikes have been likened by NATO specialists to the destruction of bridges or highways: if you choke the arteries, you choke the economy. Ironically, the most susceptible locations are not far below the surface but rather where cables emerge. These landing sites, which handle billions of dollars’ worth of trade, can have less security than a conventional bank office.
The New Theatre of Geopolitics
Legal frameworks exist, but they are patchwork. Intentional damage is illegal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and previous agreements, but attribution is still infamously challenging. Covert sabotage and intelligence operations are examples of legal grey areas in hybrid warfare scenarios. Even during times of peace, national governments that rely on their continuous operation but find it difficult to extend sovereignty into international waters, private telecom consortia, and content giants like Google and Amazon that now finance their own cables share the burden of protection.
Cables convey influence in addition to data. Strategic leverage belongs to whoever can secure them, tap them or cut them during a fight. Even though landing stations are the entry points for billions of dollars’ worth of international trade, they frequently offer less security than a commercial bank branch.
India at the Crossroads of Digital Geopolitics
India’s reliance on underwater cables presents both advantages and disadvantages. India presents a classic single-point-of-failure danger, with more than 95% of its international data traffic being routed through a 6-km coastal stretch close to Versova, Mumbai. Red Sea disruptions have previously demonstrated how swiftly chokepoints located far from India’s coast may impede its digital arteries, placing a burden on government functions, defence communications, and financial flows. However, this same vulnerability also makes India a crucial player in the global discussion around digital sovereignty. It is not only an infrastructure exercise; it is also a strategic and constitutional necessity to be able to diversify landing places, expedite clearances, and develop indigenous repair capability.
India’s geographic location also presents opportunities. India’s location along East-West cable lines makes it an ideal location for robust connectivity as the Indo-Pacific region becomes the defining region of geopolitics in the twenty-first century. India may change from being a passive recipient of connectivity to a shaper of its governance by investing in distributed cable architecture and strengthening partnerships through initiatives like Quad and IPEF. Its aspirations for global influence must be balanced with its home regulatory lethargy. By doing this, India can secure not only bandwidth but also sovereignty itself by converting subsea cables from hidden liabilities into tools of economic might and geopolitical leverage.
CyberPeace Insights
If cables are considered essential infrastructure, then their safety demands the same level of attention that we give to ports, airports, and electrical grids. Stronger landing station defences, redundancy in route, and sincere public-private collaborations are now a necessity rather than an option.
The Red Sea incident is a call to action rather than a singular disruption. The robustness of underwater cables will determine whether the internet is a sustainable resource or a brittle luxury susceptible to the next outage as reliance on the cloud grows and 5G spreads.
References
- https://forumias.com/blog/answered-assess-the-strategic-significance-of-undersea-cable-networks-for-indias-digital-economy-and-national-security-discuss-the-vulnerabilities-of-this-infrastructure-and-suggest-measures-to-e/
- https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/red-sea-cable-cuts-disrupt-internet-across-asia-middle-east-2025-09-07/
- https://pulse.internetsociety.org/blog/what-can-we-learn-from-africas-multiple-submarine-cable-outages
SVIMS Director and Vice-Chancellor B. Vengamma lighting a lamp to formally launch the cybercrime awareness programme conducted by the police department for the medical students in Tirupati on Wednesday.
An awareness meet on safe Internet practices was held for the students of Sri Venkateswara University University (SVU) and Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) here on Wednesday.
“Cyber criminals on the prowl can easily track our digital footprint, steal our identity and resort to impersonation,” cyber expert I.L. Narasimha Rao cautioned the college students.
Addressing the students in two sessions, Mr. Narasimha Rao, who is a Senior Manager with CyberPeace Foundation, said seemingly common acts like browsing a website, and liking and commenting on posts on social media platforms could be used by impersonators to recreate an account in our name.
Turning to the youth, Mr. Narasimha Rao said the incognito mode and Virtual Private Network (VPN) used as a protected network connection do not ensure total privacy as third parties could still snoop over the websites being visited by the users. He also cautioned them tactics like ‘phishing’, ‘vishing’ and ‘smishing’ being used by cybercriminals to steal our passwords and gain access to our accounts.
“After cracking the whip on websites and apps that could potentially compromise our security, the Government of India has recently banned 232 more apps,” he noted.
Additional Superintendent of Police (Crime) B.H. Vimala Kumari appealed to cyber victims to call 1930 or the Cyber Mitra’s helpline 9121211100. SVIMS Director B. Vengamma stressed the need for caution with smartphones becoming an indispensable tool for students, be it for online education, seeking information, entertainment or for conducting digital transactions.
