How algorithms capture the youth’s minds

THE Jantar Mantar protests in Delhi should have been a textbook exercise in democratic expression; instead, they became a case study in algorithmic capture. The Delhi police identified over 180 social media handles spreading misinformation during the demonstrations, including AI deepfakes and manipulated content. They include a viral claim that a woman police officer had died, a fabricated post that the army had been deployed, and a synthetic image of a blood-covered hand holding a portrait of BR Ambedkar over a police barricade, entirely AI-generated, yet potent enough to inflame passions. Investigators traced more than 400 Pakistan-linked handles amplifying these…