JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Traveling between India and Pakistan is almost impossible for citizens of either country, so social media is one of the few places where they can come together. But during the most serious escalation between the two nuclear powers in decades, content was censored across the border. As Betsy Joles reports from Islamabad, a ceasefire is in effect, but a cultural blockade remains.
BETSY JOLES, BYLINE: Thirty-year-old Pakistani citizen Osamah Nasir only realized how many of his 200,000 followers were from neighboring India when he posted a video on his Instagram account of his friend Michelle's wedding.
OSAMAH NASIR: She invited me. I was like, it's good that I could also, you know, share my experience because I've never been to a church or to a Catholic wedding in Pakistan.
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JOLES: In the video Nasir shared, flower girls walk down the aisle ahead of the bride, who's wearing a white, flowing wedding gown, while a remix of a Bollywood song plays in the background. His comment section blew up when Indian followers saw that Michelle was Christian and was having a traditional Catholic wedding in Muslim-majority Pakistan.
NASIR: How weird and strange it is to hear such comments that there is a part of the world that is just seen through one particular lens.
JOLES: So Nasir took it as an opportunity to show his Indian followers more of the Pakistan that maybe they didn't know.
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NASIR: (Non-English language spoken).
JOLES: He posted about iconic food spots, Pakistan's Hindu community and historic architecture. But then, in late April, Nasir got a notification from Instagram. His account was now unavailable in India.
NASIR: I feel like I'm being singled out in this case, but then there was more to follow around the time period.
JOLES: Days earlier, gunmen opened fire on tourists and killed 26 people, mostly Hindu men, in the Indian-held part of disputed Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for the attack and launched strikes across the border. Pakistan denied it and fought back. Fighting ended with a ceasefire four days later. During the clashes, Indian authorities told streaming sites to stop airing Pakistani songs, movies and web series. They also blocked accounts of Pakistani actors, cricket players and other popular figures. An Indian official who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity says accounts were blocked because they were spreading disinformation.
UNIDENTIFIED OFFICIAL: There was a barrage of disinformation and deliberate obfuscation of facts, especially through social media.
JOLES: But Pakistani Instagram users say they weren't posting disinformation. They were posting entertainment - like Abbas Bukhari. He's 29, and his Instagram page mostly focuses on cultural humor, the kind that he says is also relatable to people in India. It was blocked.
ABBAS BUKHARI: Anybody can go and watch those reels and see for themselves if anything was political or anti-state in its nature.
JOLES: Pakistan also blocked dozens of Indian YouTube news pages, links and websites. Analysts say the blocking of content isn't just about misinformation. It's about controlling what Pakistanis and Indians see from across the border.
HASAN ZAIDI: This is absolutely something completely new, where things are being targeted against a particular or specific narrative that they feel is undermining their authority.
JOLES: Hasan Zaidi is a filmmaker and editor at Dawn, Pakistan's largest English newspaper. He says both countries have used cultural boycotts during tense political moments in the past. Pakistan once banned Bollywood films for more than 40 years after a war with India in 1965.
ZAIDI: The Pakistani state obviously was trying to control what people thought and what people got exposed to. But this is exactly what India is doing now.
JOLES: Pakistani influencer Salima Feerasta's fashion and lifestyle Instagram account is now also unavailable in India. She says these cultural blockades prevent people from getting to know each other.
SALIMA FEERASTA: There is no way towards peace unless you understand the person in front of you, unless you're prepared to listen to the person in front of you.
JOLES: She says social media is the ideal way to bridge that gap. For NPR News, I'm Betsy Joles in Islamabad, Pakistan.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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