When terrorists attacked a tourist convoy in Pahalgam in April 2025, killing 26 civilians, it set in motion a crisis that brought nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan to the brink. India retaliated with airstrikes deep inside Pakistani territory. Pakistan returned fire. In capitals around the world, diplomats raced to defuse tensions, eventually securing a fragile ceasefire.
But even as guns fell silent along the border, another battle was escalating – one waged in feeds and timelines, fought not by soldiers but by social-media savvy citizens. They weren’t soldiers or diplomats, but in an instant, they had enlisted as digital warriors in a war fought not with missiles or tanks, but with likes, shares, and viral outrage.
This wasn’t warfare as traditionally understood. This was warfare as theater, driven by outrage, optimized for engagement, and amplified by algorithms. Social media didn’t merely document the conflict; it reshaped it. For millions, especially politically disengaged middle-class citizens, it offered a compelling way to experience nationalism – not as citizens voting or organizing, but as digital warriors performing patriotism online.
This was conflict transformed into content. And it changed the nature of war itself.
The Frontline in Your Pocket
Traditional warfare demands clarity: who attacked whom, and why. But the digital battlefield defies such clarity, thriving instead on immediacy, sensationalism, and emotional intensity. In the chaotic aftermath of the India-Pakistan strikes, social media feeds filled rapidly with misinformation – clips from unrelated conflicts, recycled explosions, even footage from video games – all shared without verification. Authenticity quickly became irrelevant; what mattered was engagement.
Platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Telegram weren’t merely passive channels; they actively propelled misinformation forward. Algorithms favored the most shocking visuals and incendiary headlines, fueling outrage because outrage captures attention. And attention, especially on social media, is highly profitable and addictively engaging.
This design isn’t accidental; it’s strategic. Conflict packaged as gripping, emotionally charged content is irresistible to algorithms optimized for virality. Truth requires patience, nuance, and verification – qualities incompatible with the instantaneous demands of social media.
War has long been presented as spectacle. The 1991 Gulf War, dubbed the “video game war,” sanitized conflict through TV screens. Today’s digital warfare pushes further, transforming spectators into active participants. Conflict is no longer just witnessed – it’s personally gamified, emotionally monetized, and endlessly scrolled.
Journalism or Jingoism?
As misinformation spread unchecked, journalism, traditionally society’s firewall against falsehood, became part of the inferno. Prominent Indian TV channels aired fake news of military incursions into Lahore and the destruction of Karachi’s port. In Pakistan, recycled images from Gaza were proudly broadcast as successful retaliatory strikes.
The result wasn’t merely misinformation – it was a carnival of sensationalism where accountability evaporated. Media executives chasing viewership and clicks discovered that sensational patriotism generated more revenue than sober reporting. Journalism, traditionally anchored in facts and verification, became indistinguishable from propaganda. Newsrooms turned into war zones, amplifying falsehoods because nationalism sells. These clips were played up online to mockery, creating a vicious loop.
States and Social Media: Partners in Propaganda
Governments, too, quickly grasped the stakes. The Indian government blocked over 8,000 social media accounts, silencing dissenting journalists and critical international coverage. Simultaneously, Pakistan lifted its longstanding ban on X, unleashing state-friendly voices to shape global perceptions.
These actions revealed a sophisticated understanding that controlling digital narratives matters as much as military maneuvers. Propaganda was no longer limited to state TV broadcasts; it was algorithmically tailored, instantly shared, and infinitely amplified. Fact-checkers could debunk posts, but they couldn’t compete with the speed, volume, and reach of the misinformation.
Digital platforms, once heralded as democratizing voices, now weaponized them. In countless posts and reels, war imagery was edited into reels layered with patriotic music, reducing tragedy to easily shareable memes. Complex geopolitics was compressed into Instagram-friendly slides, stripped of nuance. Platforms turned conflict into bite-sized entertainment, encouraging continuous engagement without context or reflection.
This isn’t merely voyeurism; it’s active participation in the theater of conflict. War is no longer distant; it’s interactive.
The Middle-Class Digital Soldier
Beneath geopolitical maneuvering lies something more personal and poignant – a hidden layer of human yearning. In India and Pakistan, vast numbers of middle-class citizens, largely apolitical and disengaged from civic life, suddenly found purpose in online nationalism.
Their political engagement had traditionally been limited to passive discontent. But social media offered an intoxicating substitute: instant relevance. Now, a post or a meme felt like national service. This digital nationalism didn’t require knowledge of complex foreign policy or political nuance. It demanded only outrage. In this context, citizenship is no longer passive; it is performed, passionately and publicly, in comment sections and WhatsApp groups.
Empathy and moderation have become not just undesirable but signs of betrayal. Himanshi Narwal, the widow of Navy Lieutenant Vinay Narwal, who was killed in the Pahalgam terrorist attack, found herself vilified online for merely urging communal harmony. Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who announced the ceasefire, was harassed relentlessly, accused of cowardice.
Perhaps most alarming was the explicit embrace of disinformation as patriotic duty. Influencers openly urged followers to spread misinformation, describing it as vital in the “information war” against the enemy. Falsehood wasn’t an error; it was a patriotic obligation.
Independent voices, the few who still demanded accountability, were swiftly marginalized. Websites like The Wire and Maktoob Media were blocked. In Kashmir, journalists attempting balanced reporting faced arrests. The official narrative became the only narrative – and it thrived on misinformation.
The line between propaganda and public discourse vanished entirely.
Endless War, Endless Scroll
Eventually, diplomats negotiated a ceasefire. Missiles stopped flying; physical borders grew quieter. But the digital conflict didn’t pause. It persists in comment threads, archive posts, and AI-generated disinformation ready for future deployment.
Social media platforms now form digital arsenals, repositories of outrage and misinformation that can be reactivated with terrifying ease. The consequences are profound, eroding trust in democratic institutions, journalism, and truth itself. If truth can be so easily sacrificed, how can societies remain resilient?
The digital transformation has fundamentally reshaped the way we engage with conflict and nationhood. Social media has blurred the lines between citizen and soldier, spectator and participant, reality and algorithmic illusion.
In the war of 280 characters, there are no victors – only clamoring citizens. And they keep scrolling.