Fake News: The aid Pakistan had sent Turkey for earthquake relief was what Turkey had sent to Pakistan as flood aid

A day or so ago, there was a story circulating on social media and in particular on WhatsApp claiming that the aid that Pakistan had sent Turkey for earthquake relief was in fact flood aid that Turkey had sent to Pakistan.

This was picked up by the mainstream Indian media. We decided to probe this and found that the Times of India story which had made this claim was based on a show by Pakistani TV show host Dr Shahid Masood. It also turned out that Dr Shahid Masood had made this claim.

Based on a claim made by a person on TikTok. Eventually, the person who made the claim on TikTok and which was the basis of this claim retracted it and said he was sorry for making a wrong claim. He also uploaded this as a clip.

An analysis of how the fake news was generated and disseminated reveals that no independent verification was done by either the TV show host or even one of India’s largest newspapers on this claim – and the end result was to damage Pakistan’s name.

Furthermore, reports with such claims about Pakistan by Indian mainstream media should always be taken with considerable skepticism and should always be independently verified since the Indian mainstream media tends to amplify all bad news about Pakistan, even if it’s fake