The conspiracy that wasn't: How a fake investigation into India, Myanmar rebels and rare earths went around the world - Alt News

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Abhishek Kumar, Emily Fishbein & Jauman Naw

This is the first of a three-part investigation into a coordinated influence operation targeting India’s efforts to secure rare earths from Myanmar’s Kachin region. It traces how a fabricated conspiracy story alleging secret roads, weapons transfers and a covert India-KIA partnership was manufactured, published across a network of pay-to-publish websites, and amplified on social media by accounts overwhelmingly originating in Pakistan. Subsequent parts examine the story’s claims against the evidence, and investigate who may be behind the campaign and why. This is Part One. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

On November 18, the website Tech Bullion ran a strange piece. Sandwiched between CEO profiles, marketing how-tos and product reviews, the "exclusive investigation" claimed that India was conspiring with the Kachin Independence Army in northern Myanmar to develop a corridor for transporting rare earths. It also alleged that India was supporting the KIA militarily to "systematically erode Myanmar’s sovereignty and resources."

An investigation conducted by Alt News in collaboration with freelance journalists Emily Fishbein and Jauman Naw found that the story’s publication and amplification were were part of a coordinated influence operation. This investigation also identified evidence of the operation extending beyond Myanmar and India.

Initially published on five content-amplification websites, the story was then published on at least four websites and news outlets focusing on Myanmar and northeast India. It was further amplified through four rounds of coordinated social media posts on X and one round on Facebook, overwhelmingly by accounts that appear to have originated in Pakistan.

Margot Fulde-Hardy, an investigator at the American social network intelligence platform Graphika, conducted research which contributed to these findings. Further research conducted by Fulde-Hardy also found that the online infrastructure used to distribute the KIA-India rare earth conspiracy story partially overlaps with that used by pro-China networks involved in an influence operation known as Spamouflage.

Whether Spamouflage, or any government, was involved in the KIA-India rare earth conspiracy story’s publication could not be confirmed, but it is nonetheless significant in three key ways. First, it helps to identify the shared use of influence operation infrastructure by Spamouflage networks and social media accounts originating in Pakistan, which has not previously been reported. "The recruitment of Pakistani accounts to disseminate Spamouflage-linked content suggests a departure from Spamouflage’s current tactics that we tracked at Graphika," said Fulde-Hardy.

Second, the story touches on transnational geopolitical flashpoints. Myanmar is the world’s largest source of certain rare earth elements, with most mining sites concentrated in territory controlled by the KIA. China currently processes all rare earth mined in Myanmar; although India does not yet possess the capacity to compete with China in this regard, Reuters reported last year that India and the KIA had engaged in preliminary conversations about a potential rare earths cooperation. If carried out, such a cooperation would undercut China’s dominance over the industry.

Both China and Pakistan are longtime rivals of India. India and China have openly backed the Myanmar military junta since its 2021 coup, while competing for influence in the country. The three hashtags used by Pakistani accounts when sharing the KIA-India conspiracy article on social media — #StopIndiaHegemony, #DefendMyanmarSovereignty, and #StopRareEarthExploitation — reflect this complexity.

According to Angshuman Choudhury, a PhD candidate at the National University of Singapore and King’s College London who specialises in India-Myanmar relations and border politics, the KIA-India conspiracy story appears to represent a new convergence of particular interests in the disinformation space.

"Every piece of disinfo is aimed at achieving something at the behest of someone. In this case too, it prima facie sought to destabilise India’s covert outreach to the KIA on the rare earth issue," he said. "That the piece came out and was fairly widely circulated shows the high stakes nature of this outreach and its potential to reshape...