#FactCheck -Viral Photo Misidentifies Woman With Education Minister as NEET Paper Leak Accused; Fact Check Finds Claim False

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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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%.

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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.

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Ethical and Cybersecurity Implications

The research has questioned extremely important things at least from the perspective of cyber policy:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. Regulatory Harmonisation: The presence of different and disconnected enforcement frameworks across jurisdictions is a drawback to the efforts in dealing with cross-border cybercrime.
5. Public Trust: Users’ trust in the digital world is mainly dependent on the safety level they see and the accountability of the companies.

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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.

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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

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An image showing a damaged statue of Mahatma Gandhi, broken into two pieces, is being widely shared on social media. The image shows Gandhi’s statue with its head separated from the body, prompting strong reactions online.

Social media users are claiming that the incident occurred in Bangladesh, alleging that Mahatma Gandhi’s statue was deliberately vandalised there. The image is being described as a recent incident and is being circulated across platforms with provocative and inflammatory captions.

Cyber Peace Foundation’s research and verification found that the claim being shared online is misleading. Our rsearch revealed that the viral image is not from Bangladesh. The image is actually from Chakulia in Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal, India

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Claim:

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Social media users claim that Mahatma Gandhi’s statue was vandalised in Bangladesh, and that the viral image shows a recent incident from the country.One Facebook user shared the video on 19 January 2026, making derogatory remarks and falsely linking the incident to Bangladesh. The post has since been widely shared on social media platforms. (Archived links and screenshots are available.)

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• https://www.facebook.com/reel/1360790046063047 
• https://archive.ph/LwvSq 

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Fact Check:

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Our research revealed that the viral image is not from Bangladesh. The image is actually from Chakulia in Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal, India. To verify the claim, we conducted a reverse image search using Google Lens on key frames from the viral video. This led us to a report published by ABP Live Bangla on 16 January 2026, which featured the same visuals. Link and screenshot

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• https://bengali.abplive.com/district/sir-hearing-protest-mahatma-gandhi-idol-vandalized-bdo-office-ransacked-1164870#google_vignette 

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According to ABP Live Bangla, the statue of Mahatma Gandhi was damaged during a protest in Chakulia. The statue’s head was found separated from the body. While a portion of the broken statue remained at the site on Thursday night, it was reported missing by Friday morning. The report further stated that extensive damage was observed at BDO Office No. 2 in Golpokhar. Gandhi’s statue, located at the entrance of the administrative building, was found broken, and ashes were discovered near the premises. Government staff were seen clearing scattered debris from the site.

The incident reportedly occurred during a SIR (Special Intensive Revision) hearing at the BDO office, which was disrupted due to vandalism. In connection with the violence and damage to government property, 21 people have been arrested so far. In the next stage of verification, we found the same footage in a 16 January 2026 report by local Bengali news channel K TV, which also showed clear visuals of the damaged Mahatma Gandhi statue. Link and screenshot.

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• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW_IJhM6Uhc 

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Conclusion:

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The viral image of Mahatma Gandhi’s broken statue does not depict an incident from Bangladesh. The image is from Chakulia in West Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district, where the statue was damaged during a protest.

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Introduction‍

In a significant step, the Indian Army beefed up its information warfare capacity on June 25, 2026, with the operationalisation of @MythbusterXX, its dedicated fact-checking handle designed to counter any form of misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, and deepfakes on the army swiftly. Adopting the motto 'Verify Before You Amplify,' the service seeks to pivot from reactive statements to active cognitive warfare. In a milieu where manipulated narratives can be as decisive in shaping public perception as kinetic force is on the battlefield, truth itself has transformed into a critical national security objective. 

This is clear proof that protecting India’s digital battleground will from now on be defined not just by troop deployments but also by its institutional verification capacities, swift attribution mechanisms, and public awareness.

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When the Battlefield Went Digital‍

Today warfare extends to timelines, group chats, and prime-time graphics packages. The distinction between misinformation , disinformation , and malinformation is crucial to operations. After all, they necessitate different types of counters. Generative AI just exponentially increased their velocity, cost, and the creepy believability of synthesized audio, video, and images. Operation Sindoor, India's May 2025 military response to a Pahalgam terror attack, provides a blueprint for just how large it can get.

According to the fact-checking site BOOM, 68% of fact checks in May related to Operation Sindoor, describing the campaign as a misinformation superspreader, and, more directly, India's Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan lamented at last year’s Shangri-La Dialogue that roughly 15% of his military’s operational time was spent on countering false news. New Delhi matched this response level; the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had blocked over 1,400 URLs, many bearing false information or communally inciteful narratives from accounts in Pakistan. These challenges won't be vanishing any time soon. Microsoft's July 2025 Digital Defence Report lists India among the top countries targeted for AI-powered state-backed hacking, noting the automation of attacks and generation of fake content used to influence opinion.

CyberPeace's regulatory tracking also indicates steps toward building infrastructure to mitigate this,  a Rule 7 complaint system for deepfakes, and efforts to foster local detection capabilities under the IndiaAI mission signal it's now an infrastructural threat.

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Why the Army Chose to Speak First

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On 1 June 2026, the Indian government’s official fact-checking unit debunked a deepfake of former Army Chief General Dhiraj Seth talking about India’s engagement with the Taliban that emanated from Pakistan-affiliated propaganda sources, appearing within days of a change of military command. Barely days after General Dhiraj Seth was elevated to Chief of Army Staff, the 31st person to hold the post, another fabricated deepfake used spliced authentic footage with AI-cloned audio to falsely allege he had blamed the past army leadership for hiding the bodies of soldiers to protect their image.

Such a dual targeting of India’s army chiefs with deepfakes in such close succession is a testament as to why an authoritative, constantly running fact-check machine isn’t an optional extra but a strategic must-have.

Architecture is as important as architecture itself. India tried a statutory fact-checking model with a government-owned Fact Check Unit under the Information Technology (IT) Rules of 2023 through the Press Information Bureau (PIB). It had to retreat from the edge of the constitutional cliff. In September 2024, when the Bombay High Court struck down key provisions of these rules. It ruled it unconstitutional to empower the state to declare digital content relating to the state itself as fake, false, or misleading. A similar reading of the analysis by CyberPeace found that digital speech should be given the same protections as offline speech, and this should be the benchmark for any counter-misinformation policy.

MythbusterXX carefully avoids the constitutional controversy by acting as an institutional avenue that produces verified information and rebuttals in response to disinformation. There is a profound distinction between answering falsehoods with factual, credible speech versus shutting them down with state power, the very proportionality that civil libertarians have said must govern a democracy's approach to online misinformation.

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Platforms as Accelerants, Not Just Conduits

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Part of the issue lies upstream, with the algorithms and broadcasters that favor speedy falsehood over careful confirmation. A month’s supply of “false and misleading stories,” the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism observed, streamed online within hours of Operation Sindoor's onset: one fact-checker identified approximately seventy false claims by the close of day one. Meanwhile, on the small screen, graphics depicting escalating conflicts were being televised, with broadcasters forced to scramble under 24/7 competition.

Amplified manipulation of the crisis narrative is also a factor; studies show that thousands of accounts have been reposting exactly the same party content for three years, making crisis-induced viral narratives predictable rather than organic phenomena. For the most part, the platforms that manage these narratives and the algorithms that direct content on both sides of the divide are not just innocent delivery systems.

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Digital Literacy as the First Line of Defence

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Institutional rebuttals only go so far if citizens lack the reflex to pause before sharing, which is where CyberPeace's own work becomes directly relevant. Through a multi-year, Google.org-backed initiative, CyberPeace Foundation aims to reach over 40 million Indian internet users, including 9 million underserved beneficiaries, through a multilingual resource centre offering 650 hours of content, state-level helplines, and quick-response teams staffed by digital forensics and fact-checking experts. Longer-running efforts such as the Digital Shakti campaign and the annual eRaksha competition, run with NCERT, have built a culture of responsible digital citizenship among young and first-time internet users since 2019, while CyberPeace Corps, the foundation's volunteer arm, carries the same message into classrooms and campuses through cyber-awareness sessions run with universities and school networks nationwide. Notably, CyberPeace's own research on children's online safety had already flagged manipulated Army-related videos as a category of digital manipulation designed to cast doubt on official military positions, well before @MythbusterXX existed. The Army's tagline and CyberPeace's mission converge on the same insight: verification is a civic skill, not merely an institutional service.

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A Season of Deepfakes

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The history book of compromised defence material in the past year alone would be edifying. The International Federation of Journalists recorded one such deepfake widely circulated that relied on AI voice cloning and lip-sync tools to present the Pakistani PM conceding defeat, though the video actually contained his praise for the Pakistani air force’s performance following Operation Sindoor. 

Other similar videos featured the Indian Prime Minister, External Affairs Minister, and Home Minister allegedly apologising to Pakistan and a deepfake with a foreign head of state in voice-cloned style applauding India’s armed forces. None needed a state’s resources, but just a laptop, voice cloning available readily, and a citizenry ready to spread rather than confirm the authenticity of any such sensational information before spreading it on to the masses.

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Building the Verification Reflex

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A resilient information ecosystem needs different actors playing complementary roles:

1. Citizens: Do not equate virality with credibility. Verify all national security-related information through official sources, such as @MythbusterXX, before reposting or forwarding it.
2. Journalists: Apply rigorous verification standards to live broadcasts, war-room graphics, and breaking reports, just as you would to print journalism, and avoid speculation during fast-moving military operations.
3. Researchers and fact-checkers: Use open-source forensic and AI-detection technologies to authenticate questionable material. BOOM researchers, for instance, used Deepfake-o-meter to scrutinize misleading videos of political leaders before fact-checking and publishing them.
4. Policymakers: Favored constitutionally proportional and carefully tailored regulations over broad-based takedown mandates. While the 2026 IT Amendment Rules require platforms to shift their obligations from compliance with takedowns towards preventive diligence on synthetic media, implementation should continue to be informed by judicial protections afforded to freedom of speech and due process.

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Cyber Resilience Is National Security Now

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Legal scholars examining Operation Sindoor have drawn a useful distinction between coordinated information warfare, which is strategic and intentional, and the diffuse, uncoordinated mis/disinformation that dominated timelines during the conflict, cautioning that disproportionate state responses to the latter can compromise citizens' right to know just as much as the falsehoods themselves. Getting that balance right, between speed and due process, between institutional voice and censorship, is the real test facing India's information ecosystem, in defence and far beyond it. CyberPeace has made a related argument in its own work on AI-enabled espionage: institutions such as the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre and the Defence Cyber Agency are already folding AI-based monitoring into their processes, yet no amount of institutional surveillance substitutes for a citizenry trained to spot manipulation on sight.

@MythbusterXX will not end deepfakes, and no single handle can. But it signals something CyberPeace has argued for years: resilience against synthetic and manipulated media requires authoritative institutional voices, digitally literate citizens, forensically equipped researchers, and proportionate policy, all pulling in the same direction. "Verify before you amplify" is not just an Army campaign. It is the operating discipline a democracy needs to protect its own information age.

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Conclusion

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@MythbusterXX can't possibly kill deepfakes and disinformation, but this marks a milestone shift towards developing an institutional resilience for India's info battlefield. For, after all, national security in the age of info warfare depends less on tech and more on robust institutions, constitutional balance in policymaking, responsible social platforms, and a citizenry that clicks "forward" only after clicking "verify."

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This piece is part of CyberPeace's ongoing work on misinformation, disinformation, and digital citizenship in India. For more on CyberPeace's initiatives in digital literacy and cyber resilience, visit cyberpeace.org.

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Key Sources

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• Dynamite News, "Indian Army launches fact-check push against deepfake videos and fake military claims" (June 2026)
• ADG PI – Indian Army, official announcement on X (@adgpi)
• Press Information Bureau, Government of India, press release on countering misinformation during Operation Sindoor
• Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, "Truth is the casualty: How Indian fact-checkers debunked false claims during the India-Pakistan crisis"
• International Federation of Journalists, "AI, Deepfakes, and the Fog of War" and "Operation Sindoor and the Two Wars" (June 2025)
• Republic World, "Operation Sindoor Haunts Pakistan: Islamabad's Latest AI Deepfake Bid Against Indian Army Chief General Dhiraj Seth Exposed" (July 2026)
• TechPolicy Press, "Sanity Prevails as Bombay High Court Strikes Down India Government's Fact Check Unit", and LiveLaw, coverage of the tie-breaker verdict, on the IT Amendment Rules, 2023 (Fact-Check Unit)
• Dark Reading, "Indian Army Propaganda Spread by 1.4K AI-Powered Social Media Accounts"
• Inforrm, "(Dis)information warfare and the right to know: lessons from Operation Sindoor"
• CyberPeace Foundation, initiatives page and The CyberPeace Initiative (Google.org-backed digital literacy programme)
• CyberPeace Foundation, "AI-Powered Espionage: How India's Cybersecurity Strategy Must Evolve"
• CyberPeace Foundation, "From Deepfakes to Due Diligence – Decoding India's IT Amendment Rules"
• Wikipedia, CyberPeace Foundation (background on Digital Shakti and eRaksha)

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