Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chuadhry Fawad Hussain on Friday said that no “Pakistani was declared anti-state” in a report issued by the government’s Digital Media Wing.

The minister was referring to Deep Analytics Report: Anti-State Trends; PTM, Political Parties, Indian and Fake News Nexus 2019-2021 released on Thursday. The report has been subject to much criticism on social media with users pointing to several flaws in it as well as its predilection for terming people and organizations as "anti-state."

In a video message on Twitter, Fawad termed the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leaders “computer illiterate” after the three leaders in a press conference termed the report “misleading.”

“We have not declared anyone anti-state in the whole report rather we have presented data in front of the nation that exhibited how a narrative has been built against the country which was supported by the foreign elements,” he said.

The DMW report claims it broke down the strategy and identified collaboration among different elements for running anti-state trends on Twitter “detrimental to the national security of Pakistan.”

It further claimed that certain groups have support from “various hostile foreign elements” who assist them in propagating against the country by spreading fake news through international platform.

Fawad's video on Twitter came to surface a day after a Geo TV anchor raised multiple questions related to the DMW report, saying it didn’t prove government's claims. Instead, the report created more conflicts and weakened the position of the country.

In his video message, Fawad clarified that people who participated in the hashtags created against Pakistan do not necessarily post anti-state messages. He also extended help to those who don’t understand digital media and said they should visit a cell created by the government where the officials who are experts in the field could explain the report.

Fawad said the media wing of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) “actively participated in anti-state trends”, therefore, the political party — mentioned in the report as one of the anti-state elements — was an exception.

Social media users and media analysts pointed to a map reproduced in the report which shows Jammu and Kashmir as part of India.

When asked about this on Geo, the federal minister said the real issue is not the map, but where the anti-state tweets were emanating from

According to the report, it has unearthed patterns to unveil those groups who have the goal of spreading “disinformation vis-a-vis state institutions.”

The report comprised 135 pages. At least 78 pages in the report were dedicated to screenshots of various posts. The handlers of these Twitter accounts used hashtags — which the report labelled anti-state — to post these messages.

In the report, 26 hashtags have been identified as run by the PTM from the period starting in 2019 till 2021. In these hashtags run for more than 125 days, the party maligned “the state institutions of Pakistan”.

“PTM accused Pakistan Army of rape, murder, genocide, war crimes, massacres, torture, land grabbing, corruption, enforced Dissappearances [disappearances] and running death squads to kill Pakistanis,” read the report.

The report labelled the PTM as “pressure group”, stating that it initially created for justice but it has turned into a “political movement”.

It further said: “PTM has created an impression that its voice is muzzled and its leaders are not being given due coverage by the media.”

Conflicting its own statement, the report stated that the government has banned VOA, Deewa and RFERL — international publications that run Urdu outlets — in Pakistan as they were covering the narrative of the PTM.

It added that Indian National Investigation Agency and Wikipedia admins — mostly operated by Indians — involved in image building of the PTM leaders by publishing their profiles.

The first Tweet — appeared in the report under the head of anti-state tweets — is by Pakistan Peoples Party leader and former interior minister Senator Rehman Malik. In his message, he raised questions over funding of Indian proxy war against Pakistan.

The Tweet handlers mentioned in the report included social media influencers, journalists, prominent leaders of opposition parties and public.

In another Tweet added in the report, LUMS professor Nida Kirmani was worried about #SanctionPakistan, saying this will affect poor people.

After the report was released, Kirmani in a message on Twitter said her career was built on criticising India as her PhD was on the effects of Hinduvta and she stood by it.

“The state would like to project people like me as agents of the Indian state because they can’t deal with criticism,” she said.