HYDERABAD: If you have regularly come across hashtags like #KCRnoNPR trending on Twitter, it is no coincidence. A lot of planning and coordination has gone into driving up these trends on social media platforms. It is invariably hard to get a hashtag trending on Twitter. Users have to tweet in thousands, if not in lakhs, by using the same hashtags.
Unless it is an extremely current issue or if it has gone ‘viral’ on the same day, it is hard to mobilise support for a hashtag. To sustain the momentum for the anti-CAA/NRC/NPR debate, Hyderabadis have been planning over which topic to tweet about and when. For instance, a few days back, moderators in a WhatsApp group decided on the hashtag #KCRnoNPR and urged members to tweet on that.
"Everyday, we try to take up a Twitter storm between 8 pm and 9 pm. All of us use a common hashtag so that we can get it trending," read a message on one of the WhatsApp groups. By 9 pm, with over 2,000 tweets, the hashtag #KCRnoNPR was trending all over India.
However, following the recent detention of protesters by the city police after the massive flash protest at Tolichowki, these WhatsApp groups have become more careful about what they post. A member of the group, who wished to remain anonymous, said, "We were concerned that other people may have infiltrated the group." Post that, the members have shifted to another social media platform which offers more facilities in terms of security.
The same method is being deployed by citizens to organise flash protests, which has become increasingly difficult for city police to detect. However, like in the previous case, they too have shifted from WhatsApp to another social media platform citing security concerns. Signature campaign
A signature campaign was launched in the city on Friday against the Citizenship Amendment Act, National Registry of Citizens, and NPR, demanding that the State Assembly pass resolutions against the policies. The petition urged Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to 'intervene and challenge the constitutionality of the said Act in the court to safeguard the democratic and secular fabric of the country.'
Anti-CAA poster draws flak
A poster for a public meeting organised by the Joint Action Committee against NRC/NPR CAA drew ire as the poster showed the convenor of the JAC being equated to Mahatma Gandhi. The poster, apart from declaring the information regarding the protest, had a cutout of JAC Convenor Mushtaq Malik with Mahatma Gandhi, with the caption ‘the Gandhi of the Million March’ on top.