Twitter, of late, has become good at flipping the blue bird. Rahul Gandhi believes the character of Indian democracy can be affected by 280 characters. Ironically, while India celebrates 75 years of Independence, our politicians are digital slaves. Twitter recently blocked RG’s handle, cauterising the attention of his 19.5 million followers and the right to interact with their idol The Congress claims that over 5,000 accounts of their members were blocked for sharing photographs of Rahul interacting with the family of a 9-year-old girl who was allegedly raped and killed in Delhi last week.
The incensed Gandhi scion and his legions charged Twitter with “interfering in our political process” and asserted that the “company is making its business to define our politics”. Other political parties followed suit in castigating Twitter’s selective salvo. For now, the shoe was on the other foot; previously, Twitter had blocked suspended handles of many social workers, film stars and Union Ministers. A couple of weeks before Ravi Shankar Prasad lost his job, his Twitter handle was temporarily blocked for copyright violations. At that time, the BJP went on a verbal rampage but didn’t take any action, presumably because Prasad was going to be shown the door anyway.
The outburst of global political figures against a corporation whose existential purpose is to disseminate a few sentences reflects the growing chasm between leaders and their target audiences. Indian political leaders — for sure — are heavily dependent on social media to amplify their views, rather than their own tried, trusted and tested organisational machinery. Undoubtedly, the near-comatose Congress has lost direct touch both with the masses and grassroots workers. Its excessive dependence on digital and social media is an indication that the party has given up on traditional opinion dynamics through agitations, active party programmes and other means of physical interaction with its own followers.
The Congress isn’t the only one trapped in the gladiatorial labyrinth of technology. It was the BJP under Prime Minister Narendra Modi which first leveraged social media to its advantage. Soon after becoming Prime Minister in 2014, Modi adopted Twitter, Facebook and other social media (SM) mediums to capture India’s digital mind space. He visited Facebook headquarters to display his love for the medium. He sees Twitter and Facebook as the fastest and most credible emissaries to carry his messages to the masses and as tools to marginalise his opponents. By massively investing in social media, Modi and his government almost ejected his opponents from the new technology space globally. Union ministers, chief ministers, BJP office bearers and frontal organisations were instructed to rev the Twitter torque to dominate the narrative.
With over 70 million followers, Modi is the second most followed politician after Barack Obama who tops the global list with more than 129 million followers. However, the Indian PM is more active — ever since he became a micro blogger in January 2009, he has posted over 30,000 tweets as against Obama’s 16,000. The former POTUS is liberal in following others — around six lakh persons as against barely 2,345 by Modi. However, both leaders have more followers than the total number Twitter handles in their own countries. Nine of the top 10 Indian accounts happen to be that of Bollywood stars.
But only the US, a few western nations and India are obsessed with social media. Of the 330 odd magnetisable Twitter accounts, over one third are in the US and India. In the US, celebrities outnumber politicians on SM. Only Donald Trump had total SM mastery and was the most followed political personality when he was in power. This digital dependence became his nemesis after being blocked by the companies when he was on the verge of defeat. Before the fall, Trump was the irrefutable icon on the same blogging conglomerates.
The Trump episode was an indicator that Twitter and its ilk are capable of influencing national gestalt. They have been accused of creating algorithms that can alter the outcome of any narrative. Twitter has often been blamed for bias, supporting the Left-liberal point of view worldwide. Leaving aside film, sports and other social luminaries, over 90 per cent of Twitteratis with a following of over a million or more are Left wing. Researchers have discovered that once an individual acquires a prominent position in politics or media, he or she is assured of a huge following as well as maximum traction in terms of likes, dislikes and RTs to create a false impression about their popularity and credibility. In fact, Twitter appears to be a highly exclusive and divisive platform where an algorithm can ensure disproportionate dominance of partisan punditry.
Surprisingly, many famous personalities have questioned Twitter’s follower audit mechanism. For example, a few years ago when Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan were competing over the number of Twitter followers, the Big B, who was ahead of Shah Rukh, suddenly discovered a downward trend in his followers. He posted a funny, sarcastic tweet and presto! His numbers were restored! Twitter was invented as a platform to share passions, actions and creativity and not to abuse, misuse or destroy reputations. But in 15 years, it has become an arena to settle personal scores. It is a messenger without a meaningful message. However, it has also become a massive multinational corporation which earned $3.7 billion in 2020, of which 86 per cent was from advertising alone. Despite the pile of dollars, it posted a net loss of $1.1 billion last year, its first annual loss since 2017.
As someone wrote recently, “Twitter is the perpetual cocktail party where everyone is talking at once but nobody is saying anything.” Paradoxically, it has become an alternative link between leaders and followers, voters and leaders, customers and producers. But it is nothing more than an oligarchy of commercial and competitive communication. A recent study noted that over 50 per cent of account holders never tweet. Only ten percent of Twitteratis post 80 per cent of the content. Fake accounts, whose only hobby is to troll opponents, are unearthed regularly. It is not a coincidence that conservative Europe doesn’t appreciate social media. The UK leads the West with 17 million accounts followed by France (10 million), Spain, Canada and Germany with just seven million each. Most of their leaders use SM sparingly.
Yet, our netas complain over Twitter’s opaque operational operandi. Some prominent social backward groups have accused it of being elitist and gagging their tweets while granting the coveted blue tick to only certain individuals. Twitter gets more attention from Indian leaders than it deserves. With just 22 million active accounts, which is not even half of the readership of five English dailies in the country, Indian leaders have fallen for the bird brain — a fake alchemist who promises to turn words into gospel gold. Many YouTubers get over 25 million viewers and hits per day. Twitter purrs like a content house cat which can be easily silenced by the roar of even a junior politician. Calling Twitter a threat to democracy is juvenile hype.
Twitter is turning itself into a narrow well filled with filth. Compulsive Tweeple shout repeatedly only to echo their own voice altered by its obnoxious odour. A healthy democracy needs to fill it up rather than helplessly becoming its victim. Numerous argumentative Indians on Twitter are fatuous frogs croaking compulsively, proud of their self important echoes and egos. A healthy democracy needs to fill the well with wisdom and restraint instead of allowing it to be marred by digital filth. Democratic dialogue doesn’t need a monetised medium. By placing it on a pedestal of digital dignity, the human communication becomes a bot’s idea of 280 characters.
prabhu chawla
prabhuchawla@newindianexpress.com Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla