Twitter India barely exists this week, after Musk reportedly fired 90% of the team. It’s unclear if Twitter will continue to pursue its lawsuit against the Union government’s attempts at censorship.
Billionaire Elon Musk announced sweeping changes to Twitter after his takeover of the platform, which appear to be targeted at a few wealthy Anglophone countries.
But their effects will be felt around the world, and perhaps hardest in countries like India, where Twitter plays a unique role in a fragile but vibrant public sphere.
Twitter’s team in India has been variously accused of colluding with and defying India’s government by moderating speech on the platform, and tweets have been used as grounds to arrest journalists and activists.
But Twitter India barely exists this week, after Musk reportedly fired 90% of the team.
The new precarity may jeopardise the legal status of speech on Twitter in unpredictable ways. For example, it’s unclear if Twitter will continue to pursue its lawsuit against the Indian government’s attempts at censorship, or if an owner who almost certainly sees India as a potential market for his electric vehicle company would consider such a political action favourably.
Twitter users, long frustrated with the lack of transparency in its verification process, often mock its verified checkmark as little more than a sign of clout. But the feature may have distressing consequences when it is made available in India, already home to some of the most intense hate speech operations on Twitter. It will provide uniquely terrible opportunities for motivated opponents to harass Muslim women and women from marginalised castes. In a political environment where police agencies use tweets not amounting to hate speech to charge or punish dissidents, the effects could be severe.
Somewhere between these two kinds of damage lies the blow to a rare element in India’s public conversation. Getting Twitter’s famously drippy bottom line under control appears to involve boosting the experience for users from its core markets at the expense of its longish tail outside the US and the West.
In the short term, this may seriously affect Indian publishers’ ability to broadcast and access quality information, wreck the visibility of content from Indian media, and affect how journalists and researchers participate in conversations.
Musk’s takeover may well have positive knock-on effects. But the chaos it has introduced into a service where consistency and transparency are fundamental elements has its nearest emotional parallel in our experience with demonetisation, which did the same thing to the Indian economy.
At the time, conspiracy theorists opposed to the ruling BJP called demonetisation a blitzkrieg whose real target was funding for opposition parties in a crucial upcoming state election. It’s hard not to be reminded of that rumour as Americans wait to see what effect, if any, the Twitter takeover will have on this week’s US midterms.
I live in Mumbai. Twitter became real to me one evening in 2008, when I came home late and turned on my parents’ computer to search for news about a rumour that had begun circulating on my commute as the train left Churchgate station – something about gunshots fired at Café Leopold.
Over the next 72 hours, as Pakistani gunmen killed and took hostages at various sites in the city, this fledgling website made its first mark on the Indian news cycle.
It changed the way thousands interacted with strangers, the news and civil society online.
Its capacity to act as a rallying point in crises made Twitter a hub for information and mutual aid like no other online or offline platform. It was always beholden to venture capital and reputationally bound to celebrities from traditional media, but Twitter’s democratic functions ended up both making and recording history over the last decade.
In the same week that Musk took over Twitter, the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah escalated his hunger strike in a prison outside Cairo ― he stopped drinking water. El-Fattah, a political dissident repeatedly incarcerated by the Egyptian government, helped broadcast the Tahrir Square uprising to the world on Twitter in 2011.
An ominous parallel: not even the old Twitter could have prevented the danger to his life. On Musk’s Twitter, even his vision of liberty is likely to be buried far down the timeline.
Supriya Nair is a journalist, writer and podcaster. She is the co-founder of All Things Small.
This article was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
From giving birth to an outcrop of online trolls who are ‘blessed to be followed by PM Narendra Modi’ to remaining quiet about the real issues plaguing the country, the curious uses of the PM’s social media presence.
New Delhi: When prime minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday that he was thinking of giving up his social media accounts, much was made of it.
After all, he has been the most ‘outspoken’ top leader of the country; his social media following is enviable, and so is the professionally-managed machinery that handles his accounts in the virtual world.
This Sunday, thinking of giving up my social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & YouTube. Will keep you all posted.
He can be safely said to be in the league of some of the biggest global politicians in terms of social media presence.
His sudden announcement to give up his social media accounts this Sunday, therefore, was bound to invite speculation. His tweet sounded contemplative at a time when the national capital is recovering from one of the worst communal riots in over the last three decades.
Many Indians had looked towards him to calm tempers in the capital. But Modi, who is usually expressive at political rallies, had gone about posting routine messages even as Delhi burnt. It took him almost four days to appeal to people to maintain peace and harmony, even as his party leaders on ground blatantly polarised the already-tense environment on communal lines.
Peace and harmony are central to our ethos. I appeal to my sisters and brothers of Delhi to maintain peace and brotherhood at all times. It is important that there is calm and normalcy is restored at the earliest.
Even worse, many of his followers, and many who the prime minister follows on social media, have been at the forefront of fomenting communal tensions on the internet.
The speculation proved unfruitful when soon after his initial announcement on Tuesday he posted another tweet to say that he was only handing over his accounts to some “inspiring women” for a day to mark the occasion of the International Women’s Day on March 8.
This Women’s Day, I will give away my social media accounts to women whose life & work inspire us. This will help them ignite motivation in millions.
The episode has, however, revived the debate on how Modi has used his social media accounts to come to power. In fact, he is India’s first prime minister who has effectively used his online power to carefully cultivate his image and dominate political debates over the last eight years.
How did the PM’s social media strategy start out and how, then, did it tactically shift over the years?
As Joyojeet Pal, an associate professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, has documented, Modi’s Facebook and Twitter presence are intertwined with his rise from a state chief minister in 2012 to the national stage in 2014.
Until early 2013, his social media presence was barebones and comprised a few posts on Facebook which called upon people to join the ‘NaMo League’, a Google Hangouts session with Ajay Devgn that was also broadcast on YouTube.
“The transition in Modi’s online presence started in 2013. Early in the year, the focus of his tweeting was Gujarat; then in about the second week of June, Modi made a series of posts “seeking the blessings” of then BJP parliamentary leader L.K. Advani and communicating with party president Rajnath Singh.
Behind the tweets was the apparent outcome of BJP’s internal discussions on who would lead the 2014 national election campaign. “This marked a new, national phase in Modi’s social media discourse,” Pal wrote in his 2015 study titled Banalities Turned Viral: Narendra Modi and the Political Tweet.
“By July 2013, he had mentioned multiple states besides Gujarat—Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab, Orissa, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu. He had tweeted about meeting both former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and current president Pranab Mukherjee, and had mentioned national icons Guru Harkishan, Swami Vivekananda, and Chandrashekhar.
“Twitter accounts in various Indian languages were set up to translate his tweets, and news emerged on the tech entrepreneurs who joined his social media campaign.
“On July 4, 2013, he overtook Shashi Tharoor as the country’s most followed politician on Twitter. Modi’s birthday, September 17, 2013, was a key social media event for the campaign,” the study added.
It was from here on out that the BJP’s famed ‘IT cell’ rapidly grew, with Modi’s handle @narendramodi beginning to follow a number of Twitter accounts that were handpicked among a pool of online right-wing supporters who had a substantial number of followers.
Meanwhile, he and his supporters launched a social media offensive against what his team called “Muslim appeasement” to denounce most forms of affirmative action for Indian minorities.
He went hammer and tongs against Indian mainstream media for its alleged failure to highlight the United Progressive Alliance’s government failures and corruption, notwithstanding the fact that the Indian media had by then almost gone into an activistic mode against the then government.
Among Modi’s followers and many BJP leaders, the term “presstitute” was popularised to describe journalists who wrote anything critical against the saffron party or its ideology of Hindutva. The larger political idea, it was later understood, was to delegitimise Indian media in the eyes of the public.
At the same time, Modi sprinkled his “development” slogan with heavy doses of Hindu majoritarian and anti-Muslim sentiment on his social media campaign. His rise to power, effectively, did not follow any political decorum; rather most of his tweets were made to deliberately sound vindictive and hateful.
Through this, he successfully projected himself as the leader of a new India which did not follow any of the hitherto time-honoured political civilities.
Modi almost always propelled himself to the centre of all political debates, in the process turning himself into a cult instead of a political leader looking to be become the next prime minister of India through a democratic process. This led to the now popular Twitter bio-description of his followers who feel ‘blessed to be followed by PM Modi’.
“For the individual tweeters, the act of following by Modi was seen as a call to action. Overnight hundreds of people changed their Twitter profile text to mention Narendra Modi or posted that they were being followed by the man himself, and many replaced their profile pictures with one of Modi. Immediately thereafter, Modi tweeted messages encouraging the registration of young voters, and as public outreach, he copied his message to the handles of the most followed Twitter accounts in India — including those of film stars Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra, Salman Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Akshay Kumar; cricketer Sachin Tendulkar; and spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar,” Pal noted.
As The Wire’s Raghu Karnad has reported, even a cursory examination of the Twitter accounts followed by Modi highlights how the action is politically useful and invariably unsavoury.
Politically useful because it helps keep his most influential online supporters motivated, but unsavoury because these handles often engage in despicable online behaviour.
While Modi’s following list has considerably ‘softened’ since 2015, as his ‘follows’ have expanded to include multiple foreign heads of state, many users on the PM’s timeline still carry out their troll-like tactics when engaging with their online opponents.
The Wire’s reportage showed that many had tweeted rape and death threats, resulting in Modi’s feed becoming a “torrent of rancour and wilful distortion”.
After becoming PM, Modi’s social media presence inevitably turned generic, in sharp contrast to the aggression that his followers keep displaying.
Each time the Opposition or the government’s critiques have raised critical issues on rising unemployment, a falling economic growth rate, or rising communal tensions, the prime minister has invariably deflected attention away from them towards whatever he and his team thinks would help his party score political brownie points.
Modi’s stunt of first “thinking about giving up” to handing over his social media accounts to women is a part of that very social media campaign that has only one agenda in mind, and that is to dominate the political and social life of India by any means.
That Malviya has not taken down his tweets despite multiple fact-checks shows not only a blatant disregard for the truth but also an intent to mislead.
On January 15, 2020, Amit Malviya, national in-charge of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) IT cell, shared a video of a random group of persons insinuating that the women of Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh are protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) for money. His allegation was found baseless by a collaborative Alt News-Newslaundry investigation. But this hardly discouraged Malviya.
Two days hence, he shared a photograph of an elderly man eating biryani at Shaheen Bagh. In a bizarre tweet, Malviya wrote, “Proof of Biryani being distributed at Shaheen Bagh!” Was the BJP leader alluding that the act of eating food at a protest site is an offence or morally incorrect? Should the protesters be participating on empty stomachs? Only he can answer.
Malviya’s misleading tweets are not limited to Shaheen Bagh. Alt News has been monitoring his social media presence for a while now and has found that he repeatedly uses misinformation to discredit individuals, communities, opposition parties, leaders and movements. With him being the official ring leader of BJP’s online propaganda machinery, the misinformation promoted by Malviya has a dangerous ripple effect. His false claims are echoed by party members and supporters of the BJP thus giving rise to large-scale misinformation campaigns.
Misinformation targeting anti-CAA protests
1. Falsely claimed that anti-CAA protesters in Lucknow chanted ‘Pakistan Zindabad’
On December 28, 2019, Malviya tweeted a video of anti-CAA protest at Lucknow’s Clock Tower and claimed that ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans were raised in the rally.
Since this is a season of pulling out old videos, here is one from Lucknow where anti-CAA protestors can be seen raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans… Damn! Someone needs to have a samvaad with them and ask them to carry tricolour and Bapu’s picture for the cameras next time… pic.twitter.com/Lvg7sj2G9Z
Alt News found that the claim was false. The protesters did not raise pro-Pakistan slogans but said ‘Kashif saab zindabad’. Kashif saab aka Kashif Ahmad is the Lucknow AIMIM chief. In a conversation with Alt News, AIMIM UP president Haji Shaukat Ali informed that Kashif Ahmad was leading the December 13 protest. Kashif saab aka Kashif Ahmad is the Lucknow AIMIM chief. In a conversation with Alt News, AIMIM UP president Haji Shaukat Ali informed that Kashif Ahmad was leading the December 13 protest.
2. Falsely claimed AMU students chanted “Hinduon ki kabr khudegi”
A video of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act was circulated on social media with a claim that they raised slogans against Hindus. Among those who shared it was Malviya.
AMU students are chanting ‘हिंदुओ की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की धरती पर…’
Chaps at Jamia want ‘हिंदुओं से आज़ादी…’
If this is the mindset that pervades in these ‘minority’ institutions, imagine the plight of Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan… pic.twitter.com/VRNeOyhaHY
The students were actually raising slogans against Hindutva, Savarkar, BJP, Brahminism and casteism. They said, “हिंदुत्व की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर, सावरकर की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर, ये बीजेपी की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर, ब्राह्मणवाद की कब्र खुदेगी, AMU की छाती पर, ये जातीवाद की कब्र. (Grave of Hindutva will be dug on the chest of AMU, grave of Savarkar will be dug on the chest of AMU, this BJP’s grave will be dug on the chest of AMU, Brahminism’s grave will be dug on the chest of AMU, Casteism’s grave will be dug -translated)”.
3. Journalist Arfa Khanum’s speech on CAA shared with distorted interpretation
“The Islamists want CAA protests to be ‘inclusive’ only till the time you, the non Muslims, start accepting their religious identity, beliefs and supremacist slogans as gospel,” tweeted BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya while sharing a video of journalist Arfa Khanum.
The Islamists want CAA protests to be ‘inclusive’ only till the time you, the non Muslims, start accepting their religious identity, beliefs and supremacist slogans as gospel… Long live the dream of ‘Ghazwae-Hind’! pic.twitter.com/va564eghL8
The speech delivered by Arfa Khanum at Aligarh Muslim University was clipped and misrepresented. They claimed that the journalist was promoting the establishment of Islamic society and urging protesters to maintain a pretence of support to non-Muslims until such a society is created. However, Khanum was stating the complete opposite. She urged protesters to not use religious slogans to maintain the secular character of the movement.
Misinformation targeting Congress and Rahul Gandhi
In 2017, the BJP leader had shared a collage of images of first Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru with women. Most of the photographs were of the former PM with his sister or niece. Malviya later took down his tweet but this hardly stopped others from sharing the collage.
2. Shares mischievously clipped video of Manmohan Singh
Amit Malviya tweeted a video of Dr Manmohan Singh on November 27, 2018, where the former PM can be heard saying, “The Governments of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were very good.” This clip seemed to suggest that Singh was appreciating the BJP state governments.
Former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh contradicts Rahul Gandhi, says governments of Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh were ‘very good’… Waters down everything Congress President has been saying over the last few days! pic.twitter.com/cLqCL0al7q
As it turned out, Malviya shared a mischievously clipped video of the former PM’s speech made the previous day. The former PM’s exact words were, “My relationships with the government of Madhya Pradesh, the government of Chhattisgarh were very good. We never discriminated against BJP-ruled states.”
3. Falsely claimed that Rahul Gandhi signed the Somnath temple register as a non-Hindu
Congress is one of the favourite targets of Malviya. In another tweet from 2017, he had claimed that then party president Rahul Gandhi had signed the register at Somnath temple as a ‘non-Hindu’.
Ambassador Meera Shankar, UPA’s representative in US, had referred to Sonia Gandhi as a Christian leader. The reference was soon deleted. Now Rahul Gandhi declares he is a non-Hindu but their election affidavits claim that they are Hindus. Gandhis lying about their faith? pic.twitter.com/iFE4AhVnRM
However, handwriting analysis showed that the handwriting in the register did not match with Gandhi’s publically available handwritten notes.
4. The infamous potato-gold machine claim
In 2017, a video of Rahul Gandhi saying, “ऐसी मशीन लगाऊंगा इस साइड से आलू घुसेगा उस साइड से सोना निकलेगा …(Will install such a machine that if a potato is inserted from one end, gold will come out from the other end.)” was shared by the BJP IT cell head.
People are sending this to me and asking in disbelief if he actually said this.. Of course he did! pic.twitter.com/rgdTf26ARv
This was a clipped video of a much longer speech where Rahul Gandhi was actually taking a dig at PM Modi during an address in Gujarat’s Patan on November 12, 2017. The complete video was uploaded on the Congress president’s YouTube channel where at 17:50 minutes he can be heard saying, “कुछ महीने पहले यहाँ बाढ़ आयी ५०० करोड़ रुपये दूंगा, (पीएम मोदी ने) एक भी रूपया नहीं दिया. आलू के किसानो को कहा ऐसी मशीन लगाऊंगा इस साइड से आलू घुसेगा उस साइड से सोना निकलेगा…मेरे शब्द नहीं है नरेंद्र मोदीजी के शब्द है. (A few months ago there was a flood here and he (PM Modi) said he will give Rs 500 crore but not even a rupee was given. He told potato farmers, will install such a machine that if a potato is inserted from one end, gold will come out from the other end…these are not my words but Narendra Modiji’s words.)”
In an August 2017 tweet, Amit Malviya claimed, “Rahul Gandhi visited Dera Sacha Sauda as recently as Jan 2017 to seek support.. Congress rules Punjab. What quid pro quo did they promise?“ He later deleted the tweet.
The screenshot of the article that Malviya posted is originally an Indian Expressarticle dated January 29, 2017. The article states, “With just a week to go for the Punjab Assembly elections, AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi Saturday visited Dera Sach Khand Ballan in Jalandhar, the biggest and the most influential among the Dalit Ravidassia community.” Gandhi did not visit Dera Sacha Sauda but Dera Sach Khand Ballan, whose head is Sant Niranjan Dass and not Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh.
A video of Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was shared by Amit Malviya ahead of 2019 Delhi elections. He claimed that a man was lynched at a Kejriwal roadshow.
AAP workers indulge in brutality, lynch a man in Arvind Kejriwal’s road show, who remains a mute spectator, doesn’t intervene, goes around his program as if nothing is happening…
Malviya did not tweet the complete picture. Other clips from the video show that Kejriwal was slapped by a person who was then thrashed by the CM’s supporters. Contrary to social media claims, the man was not lynched. However, he was brutally beaten.
Arvind Kejriwal slapped by a man in west Delhi. Act caught on camera. The man, Suresh, was then assaulted by AAP volunteers.
2. Misinformation ahead of polling in West Bengal during 2019 Lok Sabha elections
Ahead of the Lok Sabha 2019 elections, Malviya tweeted an alleged ‘first-person’ account of a student of Vidyasagar College about the violence that erupted in the campus during BJP chief Amit Shah’s rally. The ‘student’ blamed the Trinamool Congress (TMC) for vandalising the bust of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar inside the varsity campus.
First person account of a student from Vidyasagar College. Original post in Bangla and translation alongside. He recounts how TMC hooligans orchestrated vandalisation of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar’ bust inside the college for their petty politics. #SaveBengalSaveDemocracypic.twitter.com/OWA79RTjbw
Incidentally, the same message was shared by numerous other individuals in the first person. The circulation of the identical message was also noticed by Twitter users. One of them sarcastically wrote, “Today, entire Facebook is ‘I am a Vidyasagar student’.”
Alt News published an investigative report after analysing visuals of the violence and speaking with faculty members and students of the college. We found that the allegations raised in the post shared by Malviya were misleading.
3. Misinformation shared after 2018 Telangana polls
In the aftermath of the Telangana assembly elections in 2018, in which the BJP suffered a setback, Malviya tweeted that the party, despite having a 7% vote share in Telangana managed to win just one seat, whereas the Owaisi led AIMIM with a vote share of merely 2.7% bagged 7 seats in the election.
In Telangana, AIMIM with just 2.7% vote share won 7 seats but BJP with 7% got just won. Let that sink in.
While the numbers cited by Malviya were correct, the claim was misleading. This is because while the AIMIM had a vote share of 2.7%, the party had contested on merely 8 seats, of which it won 7. On the other hand, BJP had contested 118 out of 119 seats in the state assembly. AIMIM thus has a far superior strike rate of 87.5% (7 out of 8) in comparison to the BJP’s dismal strike rate of 0.85% (1 out of 118). The complete details are available on the website of the Election Commission.
Misinformation in support of PM Modi
1. Falsely claimed PM Modi is the first ‘head of the state’ to visit Kumbh
Prime minister Narendra Modi took a holy dip in the Ganges in the Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh on January 24, 2019. Soon after, Malviya tweeted that PM Modi is the “first head of state to visit Kumbh in all these years.”
Malviya’s claim was incorrect on two accounts. First, the prime minister is not the head of the state. S/he is the leader of the cabinet of ministers and the head of the executive branch of the government. The president of India is the head of the state. Based on this, the first head of the state to visit Kumbh was the first Indian president Rajendra Prasad. Second, PM Modi is not the first prime minister to visit Kumbh. The first prime minister of the country, Jawaharlal Nehru, visited Kumbh in 1954.
2. Attempt to use Nobel winner’s name to endorse demonetisation
The BJP IT cell head claimed that Richard Thaler, the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics, praised demonetisation.
”Really? Damn.“, tweeted Thaler when he was told about the introduction of Rs 2000 note in place of the discontinued Rs 500 and 1000 notes. Malviya’s tweet did not include this bit.
Thaler’s statement on demonetisation was in fact as follows: “The concept was good as a move to a cashless society to impede corruption but the rollout was deeply flawed and the introduction of the Rs 2000 note makes the motivation for the entire exercise puzzling.”
Misinformation targetting individuals
1. Targets Yogendra Yadav via edited video clip after TV debate face-off
In a TV debate, Amit Malviya had accused Yogendra Yadav of playing caste politics. In response, Yadav challenged Malviya saying he would withdraw from public life if Malviya was able to produce any evidence to back his claim. Malviya posted a video of Yogendra Yadav where he Yadav is seen and heard speaking to a crowd in Muslim dominated Mewat about his Muslim identity. “I usually don’t carry TV debates to social media but making an exception to expose Yogendra Yadav’s Janus face,” tweeted Malviya attaching a short video clip. The clip ended with the question, “When are you withdrawing from public life?” ‘
I usually don’t carry TV debates to social media but making an exception to expose @_YogendraYadav’s janus face. Here is a video where he can be seen bragging his Muslim identity to a largely Muslim audience in Muslim dominated Mewat. If this isn’t cynical politics, then what is? pic.twitter.com/sPeHqaILpB
In trying to ‘expose’ Yogendra Yadav for using his Muslim identity for votes, Malviya used an edited clip which was not even a part of an election rally.
4 things BJP’s lie factory conceals:
1. Allegation by @amitmalviya to which I responded:in 2014 election I used Muslim name for votes
2. Tries to malign Ravish Kumar by sharing a mischievously edited video clip
Below is a tweet posted by Malviya after the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh. In video, Kumar makes the following statement, “Jab tak yeh vyakti mafi nahin mangega aur mein apne party ke logo se kehta hoon ki yeh nationalist hindutva, nationalist nahin hai“.
However, if one hears the complete speech, the statement that Kumar made was, “cheen aur burma se jab woh laute to pehla kaam yehi kare ki woh dadhichi ko unfollow kare aur woh bataye ki unse kahe ki hamse galti hui hai. Jab tak yeh vyakti mafi nahin mangega aur mein party ke logo se kehta hoon ki yeh nationalist hindutva, nationalist nahin hai, yeh hum sab ko ek nagrik ki taur par pradhan mantri se maang karni chahiye.” Here, “woh” refers to PM Modi and Ravish Kumar is urging the prime minister to speak to his own party workers and tell them that people like Dadhichi are not true nationalists.
BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya while managing the party’s social media activities has shared a deluge of misinformation mainly targetting the opposition. In most of the above examples, he has not taken down his tweets despite fact-check stories debunking false claims. This not only shows a blatant disregard for the truth but also an intent to mislead.
The article was originally published on Alt News. You can read it here.
The poll raises questions about the ruling party’s commitment to healthy debate and dissent, the guild said in a statement.
New Delhi: The Editors Guild of India slammed BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya on Saturday for running an “offensive” online poll on journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, calling for its withdrawal and urging the ruling party to strongly caution its functionary over the matter.
Malviya conducted a poll on his Twitter handle on Friday, asking whether “Rajdeep Sardesai should handle PR for ISIS.” He gave four options for Twitter users to vote – “agree”, “strongly agree”, “disagree” and “he is irrelevant”.
In a statement, the Editors Guild said it had noted with deep dismay the “deplorable act” of Malviya, the head of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) information technology cell, of conducting an “offensive, McCarthyist social media poll” on Sardesai.
“The poll on Twitter was not only tasteless, it also questioned the integrity and patriotism of Mr Sardesai, who is a journalist of standing and a former President of the Editors Guild of India,” it said.
The Twitter poll by the national head of the BJP’s IT cell also raised questions on the party’s commitment to healthy debates and dissent, without allowing disagreement to degenerate into abuse, it added.
The guild urged Malviya to immediately withdraw the so-called Twitter poll and the BJP to caution him strongly.
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor also hit out at the “poll”, saying this kind of an exercise was a disgrace, coming from a spokesperson of a “supposedly” national party.
“But the nation has realised they are the foremost anti-national party. Incapable of appreciating anyone but yes-men,” the former Union minister wrote on Twitter.
Sardesai said he was grateful to the Editors Guild and fellow journalists for their support.
“Let me reiterate: I bear zero ill will to Amit Malviya: really do hope we can end toxic name calling and libel. Time for samvaad: I will be sending a copy of my new book to Mr Malviya as a NY gift!” he said in a tweet.
Earlier, in response to Malviya’s “poll”, the journalist had wrote on Twitter: “My friend, carry on with this brazenly slanderous and incendiary campaign. My new year resolution is to stay calm! Have a peaceful and happy new year.. may spirit of India shine bright!”
On Friday, Sardesai had tweeted, saying, “At every anti CAA rally, I have spotted only the tricolor and pics of Mahatma Gandhi.. at pro CAA rallies, the saffron flag is seen along with the tricolour.. think about it.. have a good Friday.”
BJP leaders have sought to delete content at saffron handles that is critical of the party, even as right-leaning websites that usually decry online censorship look the other way.
New Delhi: Much has been said about the Bharatiya Janata Party’s well-oiled social media machine, but that machine now seems to have turned on some of its biggest cheerleaders.
BJP leaders and their staff have dialled up the heat up on the party’s own social media followers – accounts which have used everything in their arsenal from memes to analysis to scathing political commentary to attacking anyone who doesn’t agree with Hindutva politics – for not fully toeing the official line.
Several right-leaning websites have also decided to turn a deaf ear to appeals for coverage – likely out of the fear of offending the ruling BJP – even though attempts to curb content online are completely antithetical to democratic practice.
Turning the tables
Startled by how a single tweet against a BJP MP from Mumbai put him at the receiving end of two threatening phone calls from the MP’s office and another call from a policeman, @RealHistoriPix, a parody account based on the older and bigger @RealHistoryPic, reached out to The Wire after he drew a blank with the right-wing media ecosystem. The account at present has more than 23,000 followers, all amassed since April 2018.
In the offending tweet from October 24, @RealHistoriPix called out a BJP MP for not visiting the family of 42-year-old Pancharam Rithadia – who killed himself by jumping in front of a train over police inaction in finding his daughter who had gone missing in April 2019. During the funeral last week on October 25, hundreds took to the streets to protest against the police, and some violence also broke out.
@RealHistoriPix, who treasures his anonymity and requested The Wire to not identify him, said he has no idea how the BJP MP’s office even managed to get his phone number as it is not listed with his account. “This is a very big question as I remain completely anonymous,” he said.
“When I got the first call, the MP spoke to me in a threatening tone, saying that legal action would be taken against me if I didn’t delete my tweet immediately and that I would be taken to the police. After that, someone else from the MP’s office called me to issue similar threats. I recorded that call and uploaded it on Twitter after cropping some bits,” he said.
The edited clip is included in the tweet below and The Wire has the full three-minute recording in its possession. For fear of unwarranted legal action from the MP’s office, @RealHistoriPix asked The Wire to not name the MP.
“Main police station mein karoon seedha tujhedo minute mein?” the man on the phone from the MP’s office can be heard saying in the second call. @RealHistoriPix also shared screenshots with The Wire to show the caller ID to prove the MP’s office had called him.
“I said that this is a democracy and he couldn’t threaten me like that,” @RealHistoriPix said. “If there was some misunderstanding, I would have definitely deleted it. If the MP would have written to me about having helped the family, then maybe I would have tweeted that as well. I respect the MP and it was least expected that I would get threats from the MP’s office staff.”
According to him, the third phone call, from an inspector with the Mumbai police, was more formal, more “fair”, as he was even asked if he wanted to file a complaint against the BJP MP’s office.
“My grievance with the whole issue is this: if they had politely requested me to delete the tweet without threatening me, I would have done it. But it’s not fair to threaten common citizens. More so, other right-wing accounts have also faced similar calls to delete tweets,” said @RealHistoriPix.
“If you take a look at my Twitter page, I have criticised the Congress as well as other parties. But I’ve never received any calls regarding those tweets. I used to earlier praise the BJP in my tweets. Now that I have critiqued them, I have started getting such calls,” he told The Wire.
On October 29, on the day a complaint was filed against BJP Delhi leader Kapil Mishra for comparing Muslim children to pollution in a tweet, @ExSecular, another account with 75,000 followers, posted a screenshot of a tweet that she had previously deleted that called BJP’s Delhi unit the worst. She confirmed to The Wire that “someone” had asked her to delete the tweet.
The Wire spoke to another Twitter user who did not wish to be named in any way at all. He runs a very popular account with followers in the hundreds of thousands, and was recently asked to delete a satirical and more than reasonably inoffensive tweet about a Union minister.
“The difference between @RealHistoriPix’s case and my case is that I was not threatened at all. Most of my tweets are pro right-wing, until very recently when I realised not everything is right with the right and not everything is wrong with the left,” the Twitter user told The Wire.
“A friend told me that someone from the government had objected to the tweet and were requesting that I take it down. I took it down wilfully, with my consent, and it would not be ethical if my handle comes out in the open and says I was threatened,” he said.
Both @RealHistoriPix and the second user The Wire spoke to have said they are not part of the BJP IT cell – despite knowing many who are in it.
In another case, The Fauxy, a right-wing satire site (a revamped version of HMP News, for whom @RealHistoriPix has written several stories and interviews) also published an apology on October 17 to Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad over an article “in poor taste” on him that had been published on the website and subsequently shared on their Twitter account. The Fauxy describes itself as ‘India’s Finest, Fastest and Fictitious News Source’.
The Wire tried to reach out to the head of The Fauxy, run by @Being_Humor, who has a fairly hefty following on Twitter himself, to speak about the events that led up to the apology, but got no response.
The deleted story employed scatological humour to mock Prasad for using Bollywood box office earnings as a proxy for the ‘good performance’ of the Indian economy:
Screenshot of a tweet of the now deleted story on The Fauxy.
This episode was also not reported by the right-wing media, which has been fairly quick to report on similar issues when it stems from any person or organisation that has criticised the BJP.
Two weeks ago, @RealHistoriPix had come out in support of The Fauxy on Twitter.
“They (The Fauxy) also make satire out of the Congress or Arvind Kejriwal, but they’ve never had to apologise for that,” said @RealHistoriPix. “They were also surprised about Swarajya, OpIndia‘s silence on the fact that Ravi Shankar Prasad made them apologise.”
The fare on site when it comes to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
When jokes run foul
In another recent instance, BJP MP Gautam Gambhir allegedly filed an FIR for a tweet from 2014 against Ankit Jain, who runs the @indiantweeter account, and is a known member of the BJP IT cell. The account has played quite a role in helping build the great BJP myth on Twitter for the past few years, since just before 2014.
The tweet from 2014.
The tweet appears to have been brought back into the spotlight this month when a user replied, and Jain, who is a contributor to OpIndia, made another remark about the former cricketer.
The tweets from October 2019.
On Twitter, more users condemned Gambhir’s alleged action over mere ‘jokes’.
Of all the things that went unnoticed. Gautam Gambhir trying to gag his own party supporter @indiantweeter was worst. Not just that people spreading rumours that Gambhir sent men to beat him up was equally vicious.
The above tweet about the FIR was also retweeted by Rahul Roushan, the CEO of OpIndia – Roushan and Jain are known to be friends, and more than generally back each other up as part of the vanguard that makes up what is known as ‘elite right-wing Twitter’.
Rahul Roushan’s retweet.
Jain allegedly admitted to being harassed by Gambhir on Twitter, only to delete the tweet later. The Wire tried to reach Jain for a comment but this reporter was swiftly blocked within two seconds of following his account. Thus, The Wire has been unable to confirm from the primary source whether the FIR other users have been tweeting about has in fact been filed. We have also reached out to Gautam Gambhir’s office for a comment and will update this story when he replies.
“If an FIR had been filed against Jain by Arvind Kejriwal or Rahul Gandhi, then Swarajya and OpIndia would have made a mountain out of a molehill and harped on about freedom of speech and this and that. They have kept silent on this now,” @RealHistoriPix said.
There were also rumours floating around on Twitter in the early part of October that Gambhir allegedly had Jain roughed up.
Ankit Jain has given almost 10 years to a party are beaten mercilessly by parachute leader and his gang ???? what the F is going on ? Is BJP not caring of there ground volunteers ??
In fact, even Jain himself appears to have alluded to such an incident taking place with a reference to “gundagardi” while sharing a story on Gambhir published in The Print on October 5. In the reply section, former spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha Amrita Bhinder – who has more than 100,000 followers and is followed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi – expresses her sympathies over his alleged “ordeal”.
Jain’s tweet on Gambhir with Amrita Bhinder’s reply.
Jain had also tweeted at Gambhir in May 2019 when the cricketer, still new to the ways of the BJP and just a few days into being a freshly-minted MP, had slammed the harassment faced by a Muslim man in Gurgaon who was asked to remove his skullcap, and said that “we are a secular nation“.
You can watch an interview with Ankit Jain here to get an idea of his politics and his undying support for the BJP, with a full bout of liberal bashing included:
Turning a blind eye
When @RealHistoriPix reached out to right-leaning websites (the contents of which The Wire covers in a weekly column) – including senior reporters and columnists at Swarajya magazine and OpIndia, Swati Goel Sharma and CEO Rahul Roushan respectively – to tell his story, he was stonewalled.
“I appealed to them both publicly and privately. I told them I would hand over any and all the proof required. But they didn’t reply,” said @RealHistoriPix. “The members of our core Hindu community hate The Wire… they call it anti-Hindu. We approached right-wingers first, but they didn’t even take us into consideration.”
In fact, Swarajya‘s Swati Goel Sharma, who was tagged as the author of an article on The Fauxy less than two months ago (see tweet below), had no comment to make on social media or on the publication itself on the satire website’s apology to Ravi Shankar Prasad despite having been a valiant ambassador of free speech on previous occassions.
Red Label gifts tea packets to Muslims who abused Sara Ali Khan for worshipping Ganesha | Reports @swati_gshttps://t.co/duokZpFm0z
After the publication of this article, @Being_Humour claimed Goel Sharma never wrote for The Fauxy.
This is to clarify that @swati_gs has not written any article for @the_fauxy. It was a satirical piece where we used one of her tweets to make a story. She has nothing to do with that piece. We do that for a lot of our articles. #TheLiarpic.twitter.com/WrwLjZaEx1
The Wire reached out to Goel Sharma for a comment on Swarajya’s silence. She said she had “blocked and muted” @RealHistoriPix’s account “long back” and said that’s why she “doesn’t know what he is tweeting to me or otherwise”.
“It’s amusing that you question me about a nameless, faceless account tagging me in tweets,” she wrote in an email.
Previously, in October 2017, Goel Sharma has taken up the cause of a ‘nameless, faceless account’ – @squintneon – in this piece for ScoopWhoop which attacks former DU student-turned-writer Gurmehar Kaur and calls her a false champion of freedom of speech, something @RealHisoriPix himself had proudly tweeted about:
“I’m not ‘nameless, faceless’ for her. In good times, she treated me like a sibling, we often helped each other and even spoke on the phone,” said @RealHistoriPix. “She blocked me first in January 2019, I had no idea why only to unblock me in February. We spoke a few times and then I was blocked again in May.”
“If I had done anything bad, she’s free to complain about me publicly. And since she believes in Hindu values, is it fair to be completely apathetic to a person whom she used to call her brother while he’s caught in a crisis?,” he asks.
The Kathua bit is a little wrong, but thanks for this lovely wish. Happy Bhai Dooj to you too ?
As a matter of fact, Goel Sharma was tagged in several tweets about @RealHistoriPix’s ordeal, so it is far from unlikely she was unaware of the appeal being made to her for coverage.
@rahulroushan@swati_gs please help and remain credible. This is age of infotech. Everyone knows everyone’s intentions sooner or later and this age is unforgiving.
Name of the Mp and tweet we will tweet again, We are here to help them if they start threatening us we will show their true place.@Swati_gs, @rahulroushan@OpIndia_com bhailog jara ispe bhi article likho
“Even if she has a grievance against me, I expected her to help me when I received threats from powerful people over a tweet,” he told The Wire.
@RealHistoriPix has also previously tagged Goel Sharma in a short list of the “most fearless handles on Twitter”.
Follow most Fearless 5 handles on Twitter-
1.@Manojkureel: Indian ‘Charlie Hebdo’, brave cartoonist
2.@swati_gs: reported Liberal lies in Kathua case
3.@squintneon:exposed Scroll-Prophet link
4.@haryannvi: best critic of Govt
5.@AiyyashBilla_: defied bullying by ThePrint journos
As to the question of being silent on an issue of free speech and the alleged story about Jain, Swati Goel Sharma dodged the questions and weaved in an attack on The Wire:
“What’s Ankit Jain-Gautam Gambhir story? I am not aware of it. I certainly didn’t read it anywhere. We happen to be tracking a freedom of speech case that is far more important and serious in nature. The Kamlesh Tiwari murder. Your portal hasn’t written much on it but the man had his throat slit for making a social media comment on Prophet Mohammad. And yes, your portal has also incorrectly said that he was convicted for his remarks. Maybe make that correction or provide evidence?”
But according to @RealHistoriPix, this is just “whataboutery by her”.
“Swati, who claims to be covering the Kamlesh Tiwari issue in detail, didn’t ask the Adityanath government a single question about the security lapse or the manhandling of his family by UP police. During the whole episode, OpIndia/Swarajya‘s only priority was to save the face of the UP chief minister and provide good PR. There is no genuine intention to give a voice to Kamlesh Tiwari’s family,” he says.
Disappointed by the way the probe is being conducted by the UP police, the family has demanded that the National Investigation Agency take over the inquiry. Tiwari’s family has also alleged that they had made repeated requests to the UP government to provide adequate security cover because of the the threats they were receiving.
Swarajya did publish an IANS article two days ago on the slain leader’s widow, Kusum Tiwari, expressing disappointment at the way the probe is being conducted.
In recent times, several right-wing accounts have also taken to raising questions about the selective reporting on display from media websites that have thrown their full weight behind championing the saffron party, no questions asked.
Among them is @RealHistoriPix, who told The Wire: “Even in the recent case in Mumbai, where the girl went missing and her father committed suicide over police apathy– they should have asked the police about why the father was forced to take such a step. OpIndia has not likely taken up the cause because there is ‘no jihadi angle’ – as pointed out by two of its contributors. The Wire gets accused of selective outrage by Swarajya and OpIndia, but they themselves will only publish stories where Hindus are victims and Muslims are the accused.”
Hindu girl is missing in Mumbai, father suicided, family is helpless@OpIndia_com refusing to cover issue claiming ‘NO Jehadi Angle’
Is it fair to dump Hindu family just because kidnappers r not Jehadis?
“In the recent rape case of a minor in Jharkhand too, even though the rapists and killers were Hindu and a Muslim man helped bring the girl’s body back home, the headline was twisted when it was published. I just try to point out their hypocrisy when I can,” @RealHistoriPix said.
A screenshot of the OpIndia headline on the Jharkhand story which only names a Muslim man among those arrested even though the perpetrators of the crime were Hindu.
“I always asked my questions to OpIndia, Swarajya journalists using polite and civilised language. My understanding is that they block me because they have no answer to my questions and they don’t like how I expose their agenda,” he said.
The fact that @RealHistoriPix and the others have been left out in the cold has not gone unnoticed by other right-wing Twitter accounts:
Swarajya’s @Swati_gs calls herself as unbiased Journo
She had covered threats given by LW Gurmeher Kaur to Squintneon
When The Wire reached out to OpIndia editor Nupur J. Sharma – as this writer had already been blocked by Roushan for reasons unknown – for a comment on the accusation of selective outrage, the alleged FIR filed by Gambhir (Jain is a contributor at OpIndia) and the prevailing silence, she refused to answer the questions and instead said:
“@RealHistoriPix has accused The Wire and such websites of being jihadi propaganda websites. The person running the handle is emotional, but he makes fair points on occasion. Since you’re taking him seriously, we too should. I think he might be right that you guys are jihadi propagandists and this DM could be an attempt to extract personal information and then gets physical attacks launched on us. Hence I’m sorry, respecting @RealHistoriPix’s sentiments, I will not be entertaining any questions from The Wire.”
According to @RealHistoriPix, this is straight-up Sharma “dodging a question on the alleged harassment of OpIndia contributor Ankit Jain by a BJP MP”.
“Union minister Prakash Javdekar had given an interview to The Wire. Is the OpIndia editor implying that BJP ministers are hand-in-glove with jihadis?”, he asked.
In his conversation with The Wire, @RealHistoriPix spoke about how he has shared the content of the two websites and given them “full support”.
“But after BJP won in May 2019, two things happened: these guys got arrogant – they started acting like BJP had won because of them,” he said. “OpIndia editor Nupur Sharma has gone as far to use abusive language against even right-wing supporters for the slight disagreement.”
Many in the right-wing social media ecosystem have condemned Nupur Sharma for her “abuse”, including the former founder of OpIndia Rahul Raj (@bhak_sala), who, upon leaving the organisation, called the media site a “blind mouthpiece of BJP”.
My stand was clear when I became a part of OpIndia. I wanted to write against lies and propaganda spread by media. I wanted to expose the hypocrisy of LW. I wrote it. Later when OpIndia became a blind mouthpiece of BJP, I distanced myself. Popularity was not my priority (3/n)
and those reminding me of Derek, there is no difference between Derek, Nupur Sharma or new age opportunists like Desi Mojito type guys. They grow on hatred. They all started as trolls and now they abuse and play victim card when questioned.
Another voice which is very highly regarded in the right-wing media ecosystem is TrueIndology. While trying to pacify both sides after a spat involving @RealHistoriPix and Nupur Sharma – which ended with the former’s account being locked – he had rebuked the OpIndia editor and suggesting that she ought to “keep her vulgar tongue in check” and not get people’s accounts frozen.
A screenshot of TrueIndology’s Facebook post. Kali and Durga are how Swati Goel Sharma and Nupur Sharma are referred to online by some of their most ardent fans.
Sharma’s own Twitter bio reads:
A screenshot OpIndia editor Nupur J. Sharma’s Twitter page.
In another example of how he says he “exposes their hypocrisy”, @RealHistoriPix pointed to a tweet from late September published by his handle:
“Among those included in the tweet are beef eaters who then go on to write an article in OpIndia about how beef is bad. So now I tweet openly about how they are simply part of the BJP IT cell and in reality have nothing for Hindus… their only ideology is self-interest,” @RealHistoriPix said. “And it’s not just me, there are many others on Twitter who think they are hypocritical and opportunistic, so they support me indirectly.”
“Ankit Jain may be part of their friend circle, but they can’t outrightly support him because Gambhir is a BJP MP and BJP gives them funding,”@RealHistoriPix added. “If I make a point against the BJP – that it had not followed through on a promise made in its manifesto – I get accused of breaking right-wing unity. I’m not a BJP spokesperson or volunteer; I’m a Hindu who feels one must be vocal about things that are anti-Hindu.”
In an interview earlier this year to HMP News, Roushan had answered a question on whether Swarajya and OpIndia essentially follow the same brief:
“We are two independent organisations but share many common beliefs and ideals. There are no pre-planned roles for either of the organisations and we don’t strategise jointly… As individuals of course, different people have different priorities. Say for me, as an individual, I try my best to make sure I contribute to the ideological battle.”
It should be noted that in October 2016, Kovai Media, which runs Swarajya, had acquired OpIndia, as Sharma said herself in an interview where she talks of combatting fake news. The latter then became an independent entity two years later. Sharma took over as chief editor in October 2017.
“They (Swarajya and OpIndia) try to portray themselves as the flagbearers of Hindus in India. But they are just a BJP mouthpiece, who keep their silence or indulge in cover ups when the party needs it,” said @RealHistoriPix.
This article was updated on November 1 to include @Being_Humour’s tweet claiming Swarajya‘s Swati Goel Sharma never wrote for The Fauxy.
Is Twitter guilty of censorship – or is there a more serious issue here? Raghu Karnad explains why freedom of speech does not mean unrestricted freedom to tweet.
Far-right users are upset that their Twitter accounts have been suspended or “shadow-banned” for posting abuse, threats, hate speech or malicious information. On cue, the BJP chairman of the parliamentary committee on information technology summoned Twitter representatives (including CEO Jack Dorsey, who refused to come) to defend itself against accusations of bias.
But is Twitter guilty of censorship – or is there a more serious issue here, which is the Narendra Modi government interfering with the “newspaper” of the 21st century? Raghu Karnad explains why freedom of speech does not mean unrestricted freedom to tweet.
The BJP-led panel took “serious note” of the company’s reluctance to bring Jack Dorsey and senior members of global team to depose before the committee.
New Delhi: India’s parliamentary panel on information technology on Monday upped the ante in its stand-off against Twitter by refusing to meet the company’s India representatives and instead giving 15 more days for CEO Jack Dorsey or a senior member of its global team to come and depose before the committee.
The committee – which wants to examine the issue of “safeguarding citizens right on social/online news media platforms” and is headed by the BJP’s Anurag Thakur – had in late January asked Twitter’s representatives to provide their views before the panel.
In the run-up to the hearing, the Centre had received representations sent by conservative Supreme Court lawyer Ishkaran Singh Bhandari titled “Discriminatory and unfair practises by Twitter Inc. which are a National Security Threat”.
In early February, members of Youth for Social Media Democracy, a right-wing group, also protested outside the company’s office, alleging that Twitter has acquired an “anti-right-wing attitude” and had been blocking their accounts.
Delhi: Members of 'Youth for Social Media Democracy' protest outside the office of Twitter India. Protesters say "Twitter has acquired an anti-right wing attitude. They block our accounts & impressions of the tweets. We won't tolerate this, they will have to change their policy." pic.twitter.com/rsgTO99uWx
The committee’s hearing, which was first scheduled for February 7, was later postponed to February 11 to provide more time for Twitter.
In a statement put out last week, the micro-blogging service noted that it would “not be possible for senior officials from Twitter to travel from the United States to appear on Monday (February 11)”.
“We have suggested that we work with the Lok Sabha secretariat to find mutually agreeable dates for this meeting so that a senior Twitter official can attend. We have also offered representatives from Twitter India to come and answer questions on Monday. We await feedback from the government on both of these matters,” the company’s statement said.
On February 11, the company’s Indian representatives went to attend the hearing.
According to sources though, the parliamentary panel decided to postpone the hearing and give another two weeks for Dorsey or any other member of its global team to attend by February 25.
Sources said that panel took “serious note” of the company’s reluctance to bring senior members of global team to depose before the committee.
An email questionnaire has been sent to Twitter asking for comment and this story will be updated if and when a response is received.
