TikTok, which is a Chinese app, has become the medium to mislead the Indian Muslims. There has been an increase in TikTok videos claims Voyager Infosec, a Delhi based digital lab. Thirty thousand clips were circulated to curb social distancing, wearing masks, and adopting quarantine life. The videos are short clips where young Muslim boys say that "CORONAVIRUS IS ALLAH'S NRC" and throw their masks at the end of the video.
These videos are believed to be made out of India but are edited with the Hindi subtext and Urdu voice in India. A 13-sec video got popular where a young boy is saying, "This Coronavirus is nothing. It's Allah's NRC. It's Allah's wish who stays and who is summoned up," and it has playback music, "Allah Se Dar -- Fear Allah." Another 17-sec video claims that Coronavirus has no effect on Muslims and points to text from the Quran, stating that hand-shaking and hugging can cure diseases.
Voyager Infosec's Director Jiten Jain said to India TV, "We have found a fascinating pattern where TikTok has been used as a primary medium to spread misinformation, citing fake and dubious research, which claims that coronavirus does not affect Muslims and that there has not been a single Muslim coronavirus patient in China and Italy." We have identified certain handles and patterns of these videos and once they go viral the original handle gets deleted to hide the origin. The purpose of this investigation is to inform our Muslim brothers of such patterns."
The report submitted by the agency to the Union Home Ministry states that the videos are created to target the Indian Muslim sentiments. There is a pattern of these videos where the accounts from which the video was uploaded gets deleted to safeguard the face behind the content creator. But, there are already 10 million people who have watched the video. The video was made to spread misinformation in India, and it is believed that there is a role of foreign actors and agencies. A more in-depth investigation has been probed to know the person behind the disinformation campaign.