#FactCheck - Viral Video Claiming Iran’s Attack on US Airbase Debunked as 9/11 Footage

Executive Summary:

In the digital world, people are becoming targets more and more of online scams, which rely on deception. One of the ways the social media is being used for the elections in recent time, is the "BJP - Election Bonus" offer that promises a cash prize of Rs. 5000 or more, through some easy questionnaire. This article provides the details of this swindle and reveals its deceptive tricks as well as gives a set of recommendations on how to protect yourself from such online fraud, especially during the upcoming elections.

False Claim:

The "BJP - Election Bonus" campaign boasts that by taking a few clicks of the mouse, users will get a cash prize. This scheme is nothing but a fake association with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s Government and Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and therefore, it uses the images and brands of both of them to give the scheme an impression of legitimacy. The imposters are taking advantage of the public's trust for the Government and the widespread desire for remuneration to ensnare the unaware victims, specifically before the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

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The Deceptive Scheme:

• Tempting Social Media Offer: The fraud begins with an attractive link on the social media platforms. The scammers say that the proposal is related to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with the caption of “The official party has prepared many gifts for their supporters.” accompanied by an image of  the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi.

• Luring with Money: The offer promises to give Rs.5,000 or more. This is aimed at drawing in people specifically during election campaigns; and people’s desire for financial gain.

• Tricking with Questions: When the link is clicked, the person is brought to the page with the simple questions. The purpose of these questions is to make people feel safe and believe that they have been selected for an actual government’s program.

• The Open-the-Box Trap: Finally, the questions are answered and the last instruction is to open-the-box for the prize. However, this is just a tactic for them to make you curious about the reward.

• Fake Reward and Spreading the Scam: Upon opening the box, the recipient will be greeted with the text of Rs. 5000. However, this is not true; it is just a way to make them share the link on WhatsApp, helping the scammers to reach more victims.

The fraudsters use political party names and the Prime Minister's name to increase the plausibility of it, although there is no real connection. They employ the people's desire for monetary help, and also the time of the elections, making them susceptible to their tricks.

Analytical Breakdown:

• The campaign is a cleverly-created scheme to lure people by misusing the trust they have in the Government. By using BJP's branding and the Prime Minister's photo, fraudsters aim to make their misleading offer look credible. Fake reviews and cash reward are the two main components of the scheme that are intended to lure users into getting involved, and the end result of this is the path of deception.
• Through sharing the link over WhatsApp, users become unaware accomplices that are simply assisting the scammers to reach an even bigger audience and hence their popularity, especially with the elections around the corner.
• On top of this, the time of committing this fraud is very disturbing, as the election is just round the corner. Scammers do this in the context of the political turmoil and the spread of unconfirmed rumors and speculation about the upcoming elections in the same way they did earlier. The fraudsters are using this strategy to take advantage of the political affiliations by linking their scam to the Political party and their Leaderships.

• We have also cross-checked and as of now there is no well established and credible source or any official notification that has confirmed such an offer advertised by the Party.

• Domain Analysis: The campaign is hosted on a third party domain, which is different from the official website, thus creating doubts. Whois information reveals that the domain has been registered not long ago. The domain was registered on 29th march 2024, just a few days back.   

• Domain Name: PSURVEY[.]CYOU
• Registry Domain ID: D443702580-CNIC
• Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.hkdns.hk
• Registrar URL: http://www.hkdns.hk
• Updated Date: 2024-03-29T16:18:00.0Z
• Creation Date: 2024-03-29T15:59:17.0Z (Recently Created)
• Registry Expiry Date: 2025-03-29T23:59:59.0Z
• Registrant State/Province: Anhui
• Registrant Country: CN (China)
• Name Server: NORMAN.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM
• Name Server: PAM.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM

Note: Cybercriminals used Cloudflare technology to mask the actual IP address of the fraudulent website.

CyberPeace Advisory and Best Practices:

• Be careful and watchful for any offers that seem too good to be true online, particularly during election periods. Exercise caution at a high level when you come across such offers, because they are usually accompanied by dishonest schemes.

• Carefully cross-check the authenticity of every campaign or offer you’re considering before interacting with it. Do not click on suspicious links and do not share private data that can be further used to run the scam.

• If you come across any such suspicious activity or if you feel you have been scammed, report it to the relevant authorities, such as the local police or the cybercrime section. Reporting is one of the most effective instruments to prevent the spread of these misleading schemes and it can support the course of the investigations.

• Educate yourselves and your families on the usual scammers’ tricks, including their election-related strategies. Prompt people to think critically and a good deal of skepticism when they meet online offers and promotions that evoke a possibility to obtain money or rewards easily.

• Ensure that you are always on a high level of alert as you explore the digital field, especially during elections. The authenticity of the information you encounter should always be verified before you act on it or pass it over to someone else.

• In case you have any doubt or worry regarding a certain e-commerce offer or campaign, don’t hesitate to ask for help from reliable sources such as Cybersecurity experts or Government agencies. A consultation with credible sources will assist you in coming up with informed decisions and guarding yourself against being navigated by these schemes.

Conclusion:

The "BJP - Election Bonus" campaign is a real case study of how Internet fraud is becoming more popular day by day, particularly before the elections. Through the awareness of the tactics employed by these scammers and their abuse of the community's trust in the Government and political figures, we can equip ourselves and our communities to avert becoming the victim of such fraudulent schemes. As a team, we can collectively strive for a digital environment free of threats and breaches of security, even in times of high political tension that accompany elections.

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Introduction
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Meta Platforms is experiencing a long-term surge of lawsuits that not only question particular practices, but also the very design and governance of its platforms, across the United States and beyond. This range of privacy breaches to youth mental health damages and antitrust issues are all indicative of a new era of judicial, regulatory, and civil society scrutiny of the duties of big tech firms. The main question is no longer whether harmful content is placed on platforms, but to what extent they are actively creating harm-producing environments.
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From Content to Conduct: A Turning Point in Legal Strategy
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Over the years, Meta and other sites have depended on legal safeguards like the US Communications Decency Act, Section 230, which protects companies against liability due to user-created content. New ways of testing that protection are now being tried.

Recent incidents have shifted off the blame of particular content and has placed the emphasis on the design of the platform. Courts are becoming more receptive to consider whether the characteristics of infinite scroll, algorithmic amplification, and engagement-based ranking systems are contributing to quantifiable harm.

In March 2026, a California jury declared that Meta and Google were negligent in creating platforms that led to youth addiction and mental health problems. The jury decided that Meta and Google were to pay off a joint sum of 6 million dollars in damages, with 70 percent of the sum being charged on Meta. It is a bellwether case, which means that it is related to about 2,000 other pending cases by parents and school districts. This change is important as it avoids legal barriers. When the liability is linked to the design decisions instead of user-created content, accountability begins to shift. 
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The Youth Harm Cases: A Big Tobacco Moment
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Social media are becoming the subject of increased scrutiny by courts and regulators as products that have quantifiable psychological impacts. The most impactful group of lawsuits against Meta is, perhaps, the one concerning youth mental health.

A day prior to the California verdict, a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in damages due to failure to safeguard young users against child predators on Instagram and Facebook, and found that the company had lied to consumers about the safety of its products and violated state consumer protection laws.

Similar arguments have been presented in other lawsuits filed by attorneys general in over 30 states, and the cases reflect previous regulatory turning points in other industries such as tobacco. The question that courts are not merely asking is whether there is harm or not. They are questioning whether businesses were aware of creating systems that capitalize on behavioral weaknesses. It has been reported in internal documents and accounts of former employees that Meta made a profit by intentionally turning its platforms into addictions to children, with algorithmic functions tailored to drive users into engagement loops, maximising time on platform to the detriment of wellbeing.

Meta has refuted these characterisations, claiming that teen mental health is multifaceted and cannot be blamed on an individual app. The companies have indicated that they will appeal the verdicts.
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Privacy and Data Misuse: An Ongoing Fault Line
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Platform design is not the only issue that Meta faces in legal matters. Cases centered on privacy have been a recurrent problem in the last ten years, and previous cases have claimed that Facebook monitored users even after they have logged out, scanned personal messages, and utilized personal data in a manner that was beyond user expectations. In more recent times, in April 2026, a class action suit was filed claiming that WhatsApp messages were accessed by Meta employees and third-party contractors, despite the long-standing end-to-end encryption guarantees of the platform.

These instances indicate a structural problem that is consistent. Consent mechanisms and privacy policies tend to be out of date with the reality of data use, and the gap between legal compliance and what users actually know or expect.
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Antitrust: A Win, But Not a Clean One
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One of the legal fronts was Meta all the way. In November 2025, a judge in the US District Court, James Boasberg, declared that Meta was not a social networking monopoly, finding that the FTC did not demonstrate that the acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp by the company were against the antitrust law. The decision has since been appealed by the FTC, which continues to argue that "Meta broke our antitrust laws by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp, and that American consumers have been harmed by it.

The case also demonstrates a significant drawback of the antitrust law as a form of regulation of tech companies. By the time the trial occurred five years after the lawsuit was initiated, the social media market had evolved such that Tik Tok was a major competitor, undermining the market definition claims of the FTC. The structural issue of whether a few platforms are too powerful in the communication of the masses is not answered, although the legal claim in this instance might have been unsuccessful.
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Policy Takeaways: What This Means Going Forward
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The accumulating number of lawsuits against Meta provides a number of valuable lessons to policymakers.

1. Platform design has become a regulatory topic. Laws should go beyond content regulation and deal with the construction of systems. Engagement maximising features can also increase harm, and this trade-off must be governed explicitly.
2. Transparency should be mandatory and not discretionary. Privacy policies and disclosures on platforms are usually too complicated or ambiguous. Regulators might be required to make more transparent and standardised disclosures regarding the use of data and the operation of recommendation systems.
3. Section 230 safeguards are under reinterpretation. Courts are becoming open to restrict immunity in cases where the harm is associated with the conduct of the platform and not the content of the user. This would redefine the law of all digital platforms, and not only Meta.
4. Cross-border coordination is needed. Meta is an international company, yet the regulatory reaction is still divided. This will require more coordination among jurisdictions to guarantee uniform enforcement and to eliminate regulatory arbitrage.
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Conclusion
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The lawsuits of Meta are not single cases. They are a more general reconsideration of the regulation of digital platforms and the accountability of those responsible when design decisions have harm at scale. In the wider context of the technology ecosystem, the implications are structural. Courts are starting to question not only what is hosted on them, but how they work and why they are constructed in the manner they are.

The age of minimal responsibility is being supplanted by a more challenging requirement: that platforms should foresee, quantify, and alleviate the harms they produce. The result of these cases will not only decide the future of Meta in terms of legal matters. They will influence the regulations of the digital economy in the years to come.

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References
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1. https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5746125/meta-youtube-social-media-trial-verdict 
2. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/jury-finds-meta-and-youtube-liable-in-landmark-youth-addiction-case
3. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/meta-ftc-whatsapp-instagram/
4. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/20/ftc-appeals-metaruling-antitrust-instagram-whatsapp.html‍
5. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czjw0zgz9zyo

Executive Summary

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Last September, protests were held in Ladakh over several demands, including full statehood, extension of Sixth Schedule protections, separate Lok Sabha seats for Leh and Kargil, and reservation in jobs. During that period, some demonstrations turned violent. Since then, talks between stakeholders and the government have continued regarding these demands. Amid this backdrop, Pakistani propaganda handles on social media are sharing a video of a protest and claiming that violent demonstrations have erupted in Ladakh following the arrest of education reformer Sonam Wangchuk. CyberPeace Research Wing  research found the claim to be misleading. The claim regarding Sonam Wangchuk’s arrest is false, while the viral video is actually from protests that took place in September last year.

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Claim:

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Sharing the video, a user wrote: “Massive protests in Ladakh. Violent demonstrations have erupted after reports of the arrest of Ladakh’s revolutionary leader Sonam Wangchuk. The people of Ladakh seek justice and freedom from the Indian Army, which is attacking civilians.”

https://x.com/ZardSi/status/2064204063248695393?s=20

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Fact Check:

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Our research found the claim to be misleading. The viral video is from protests held in September last year, and the claim that Sonam Wangchuk has been arrested is also false. We first converted the video into keyframes and conducted a reverse image search using Google Lens. This led us to several videos and news reports covering the same incident. The viral footage was found in a news report uploaded on September 24, 2025, by Asianet News English on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/@asianetnewsenglish

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According to the information provided with the video, large-scale protests took place in Leh in support of demands for Sixth Schedule status and full statehood for Ladakh. The movement turned violent following clashes with police, and protesters allegedly set fire to a BJP office in Leh. CRPF personnel and local police later detained several protesters, bringing the situation under control. We also found a report published by Arunachal24, which stated that at least four people were killed and more than 70 injured in violent clashes between protesters demanding statehood and constitutional safeguards for Ladakh and security forces. The report further mentioned that protesters set fire to a local BJP office and a CRPF vehicle, following which authorities imposed a strict curfew across Leh.

https://arunachal24.in/ladakh-protests-turn-violent-as-demand-for-sixth-schedule-intensifies-4-killed-70-injured/

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Our team also found that the claim about Sonam Wangchuk’s arrest is entirely false. Wangchuk remains active on social media and had posted an update on June 10, indicating that he had not been detained.

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Conclusion:

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The fact-check clearly shows that the viral claim is misleading. There is no evidence that Sonam Wangchuk has been arrested. The viral video is not recent and actually shows protests that took place in Ladakh in September 2025.

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