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ISLAMABAD: In a first, the Pakistan army’s media wing has launched the Hilal Talks 2025 program to raise awareness among Pakistani teachers about the “tactics and nefarious agendas of anti-state elements” on social media, Radio Pakistan reported on Thursday. 

While India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire after coming close to an all-out conflict earlier this month, social media citizens on both sides are vying to control public perceptions by peddling disinformation.

Platforms such as Facebook and X are still awash with misrepresented footage of the attacks that killed at least 70 people and sent thousands fleeing from their shared de facto Line of Control (LoC) border.

“Hilal Talks 2025 program has been launched under the auspices of ISPR,” Radio Pakistan reported, saying 1,950 teachers from various regions of the country were participating in the program run by the army’s media wing. 

“It is aimed at raising awareness about the tactics and nefarious agendas of anti-state elements on social media.”

The report said teachers “got the opportunity to understand the structure, role and working mechanism of Pakistan Army more closely.”

Indian and Pakistani media outlets have both amplified misinformation, including false or unverifiable claims of military victories that experts say have exacerbated tensions and contributed to a flood of hate speech.

Disinformation peaked when India launched deadly air strikes on May 7 targeting “terrorist camps” in Pakistan, two weeks after a deadly attack on the Indian-administered side of disputed Kashmir.

New Delhi blames Islamabad for backing the April 22 attack near the tourist town of Pahalgam, which killed 26 people — almost all of them Hindu men. Pakistan denies the claim.

After the first round of Indian air strikes, the Pakistani military shared footage that had previously circulated in reports about a 2023 Israeli air strike in Gaza. The clip quickly appeared on television and social media but was later retracted by numerous media outlets, including AFP.

AI-generated imagery has also muddied the waters, including a video that purportedly shows a Pakistan Army general saying the country lost two of its aircraft. AFP fact-checkers found the clip was altered from a 2024 press conference.

Both India and Pakistan have taken advantage of the information vacuum to raise alarm bells and promote their own claims and counter-claims.

Pakistan appears to have lifted a more than one-year-old ban on X the same day of the Indian strikes.

Pakistan’s National Cyber Emergency Response Team (NCERT) on May 8 issued an alert about “increased cyberattacks and misinformation via emails, social media, QR codes, and messaging apps.”

Both Pakistan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Karachi Port Trust later said their X accounts had been hacked.

A post from the latter account said the port — one of South Asia’s busiest — was attacked by the Indian military. The page was later restored and the port authority said no attack had taken place.

India, meanwhile, has executed a sweeping crackdown targeting the social media accounts of Pakistani politicians, celebrities and media organizations.

The government ordered X to block more than 8,000 accounts and banned more than a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels for allegedly spreading “provocative” content, including news outlets.

Press Information Bureau (PIB) Fact Check, a government-run website, has also refuted more than 60 claims about the ongoing crisis, many having to do with supposed Pakistani military victories.

The avalanche of disinformation online has also been accompanied by a spike in hate speech offline.

With inputs from AFP

ISLAMABAD: Bilal Bin Saqib, Pakistan’s minister for crypto and blockchain and the CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council (PCC), unveiled the country’s first government-led strategic bitcoin reserve at Bitcoin Vegas 2025, his office said on Thursday.

The strategic bitcoin reserve is a reserve asset, funded by the United States Treasury’s forfeited bitcoin, announced by President Donald Trump in March 2025. The reserve will be capitalized with bitcoin already owned by the federal government. The United States is the largest known state holder of bitcoin in the world, estimated to hold about 200,000 BTC, as of March 2025.

At Bitcoin 2025, the biggest bitcoin conference in the United States which is underway in Las Vegas, Saqib unveiled “the country’s first government-led Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, and with it, a radically new vision of Pakistan on the global map,” his office said in a statement. 

“Bilal announced the establishment of a national Bitcoin wallet, holding digital assets already in state custody — not for sale or speculation, but as a sovereign reserve signaling long-term belief in decentralized finance.”

Pakistan set up the PCC in March, with Saqib, 34, as the CEO, to create a legal framework for cryptocurrency trading in a bid to lure international investment. Last month, Pakistan introduced its first-ever policy framework, created by a special government group under the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorism Financing (CTF) authority, to set rules for how digital money like cryptocurrencies and the companies that deal in it should operate in Pakistan. The policy has been formulated to align with compliance and financial integrity guidelines of the global Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

Earlier this month, the government also approved setting up the Pakistan Digital Assets Authority (PDAA), a specialized regulatory body to oversee blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

Speaking during his keynote at Bitcoin 2025, the PCC CEO highlighted that Pakistan had over 40 million crypto wallets, a median age of 23, and one of the largest and most active freelancer economies in the world.

“Saqib revealed that the government of Pakistan has allocated 2,000 megawatts of surplus electricity in Phase 1 for Bitcoin mining and AI data centers, opening doors to sovereign miners, tech firms, and clean energy partners around the world,” the statement said. 

Saqib is also leading the creation of the Pakistan Digital Assets Authority (PDAA) “to empower builders, protect investors, and formalize digital finance frameworks for the future.”

“This wasn’t just a policy moment, it was a rebranding of a nation,” Saqib said at Bitcoin 2025, which featured speakers including White House officials, US lawmakers and crypto industry executives. This year’s keynote speaker was US Vice President JD Vance.

Digital assets have enjoyed a resurgence under President Trump, who courted cash from the crypto industry on the campaign trail by pledging to be a “crypto president.” In his first week in office, Trump ordered the creation of a cryptocurrency working group to propose digital asset regulations. In March, he hosted a group of crypto executives at the White House.

Congress is considering legislation to create a regulatory framework for stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar. The crypto industry has lobbied lawmakers to pass legislation creating new rules for digital assets and spent more than $119 million backing pro-crypto congressional candidates in last year’s elections.