De facto intelligence operations under the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI) have intensified an organized digital campaign employing fake social media accounts to undermine independent news organizations, target dissenting voices, and distort factual reporting on Afghanistan.
According to investigations into the de facto administration’s cyber strategy, intelligence units operate dedicated digital offices responsible for managing covert troll networks and automated accounts across platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and YouTube. To maximize outreach and evade public suspicion, these accounts routinely adopt the logos of established news agencies, operate under female pseudonyms, or impersonate well-known public figures and international diplomats.
The primary objective of this cyber operation is to flood information spaces with discrediting narratives against independent media outlets, anti-regime critics, and regional monitoring networks. By disseminating fabricated stories, issuing online threats, and fabricating grass-roots commentary, these intelligence-backed accounts systematically attack the credibility of reports highlighting human rights abuses, administrative corruption, and regional security incidents.
Digital security analysts emphasize that the strategic deployment of female personas and news branding allows state-backed operatives to bypass public skepticism, manipulate online discourse, and engineer artificial consensus. As press freedoms within Afghanistan remain severely constrained, the covert proliferation of fake intelligence accounts represents a systematic effort to silence external journalism and replace independent oversight with controlled propaganda.