Tag: twitter storm

It’s Time We Stop Keeping Actors, Cricketers on a Pedestal

When we keep someone on a pedestal we, unknowingly, keep them in the position of authority and give them the power to influence us, our decisions.

India is a cricket crazy nation. We love our cricketers and some of us even worship them.

Also, we love our cinema. We look up to the reel life heroes and admire them with the expectation that they are real life heroes. But what happens when these influencers do something unexpected?

When we keep someone on a pedestal we, unknowingly, keep them in the position of authority and give them the power to influence us, our decisions. From their fashion sense to their political ideologies, we believe everything they do could be correct, since they’ve achieved something we haven’t. And when they do choose to take a side which is different from ours, it personally affects us.

My father used to tell me that you’ll see Indians the most united during an India versus Pakistan match. But the most united I’ve seen our actors, cricketers and other influencers, in the recent past, was against a six-word tweet by an international pop star.

On Tuesday, February 2, when pop-singer Rihanna tweeted, “Why aren’t we talking about this? #FarmersProtest” with a link to a CNN article on internet suspension near the Delhi borders, which has been the centre of the ongoing farmers’ movement, she shook the world’s largest democracy. So much so that her single tweet awoke the patriotism in all those whom we call “heroes” – that very patriotism which lakhs of farmers from across the nation could not ignite in their 70-day long struggle.

 

Even as the farmers are protesting against the Centre’s three contentious agriculture laws, battling harsh winters and police retaliation amid a pandemic, the so-called “powerful people” of our country had nothing to say.

But a single tweet from Rihanna was countered by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and well campaigned by “internal forces” of the country — our heroes, actors and cricketers.

Also read: Bad Girl Diplomacy Takes Ministry of External Affairs by Storm

Foreign criticism prompted Indian backlash 

On Wednesday, February 3, when the world woke up to the pop-queen herself taking a stand in support of the protest, the oh-so-small ego and tolerance of the world’s largest democracy was hurt. From Rihanna’s past, present and future to her character, everything was assassinated and torn apart by those who call themselves “patriots” of this country.

The BJP IT cell pulled off a graveyard shift trying to find out first, who is Rihanna? And second, why is she speaking about our “internal matters”? And as the trick goes, when you don’t find anything substantial, press the button of patriotism against “external forces” who are trying to “divide” our country.

The last nail in this coffin was bolted when the MEA released a statement using particular hashtags at the end of the document, as if they were indicating anyone who loves his country to create a social media trend that can, with just a tweet from an influencer, take the attention off of the past 70 days of struggle.

From Sachin Tendulkar to Akshay Kumar, there was a similar pattern which was followed in the tweets trying to unite the “Indians” and bringing #IndiaTogether while we scream #IndiaAgainstPropaganda.

At this moment, it is worthwhile to share another phrase my father often used when my brother and I fought as kids, “The more you pay attention to or amplify a person’s point of view, the more they feel they have their influence on you.”

He said, “Always remember, a person only feels relevant till the time you let their words and actions affect you.” Fair enough, more often than not we let people like Kangana Ranaut manipulate our thoughts and affect us so much that we share, retweet and comment on her opinions, while unknowingly, amplifying everything she stands for.

Be it her comments about how mental health works in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput’s death or her calling Rihanna a “porn singer”, we did share everything she said with our little touch of gyaan and amplified it, giving her another reason to see the statistics and feel empowered. So has been the case with every person in this country who had religious and caste-based hatred at the back of their minds and found several other like-minded people via social media only to preach their cause.

This is not a new trick, but in a country where the internet is cheaper than elementary education, it is an easy one to pull off. Indians are touchy about a few things — Bollywood, cricket, religion and patriotism are some of them. And this has made a major section of the population to unite against a six-worded tweet.

Also read: The Limits of Hindutva’s Homegrown Authoritarianism

A few friends expressed their disappointment last night saying they “never expected Sachin, Virat Kohli or even Rohit Sharma to say things like this”. “Be it for or against, if they would’ve said what they said before Rihanna tweeted, we would have still been okay with their personal opinion”.

Resonating a similar feeling, filmmaker Farah Khan tweeted, “Disappointed with the fraternity tweeting identical tweets that make it more like a marketing gimmick. Whatever their reasons & I’m no one to judge at least u could have tried to make it more original. Now you have given yourselves away. Reel Life Heroes VS Real Life Heroes (sic)”.

‘Double standards’

Ironically, these were the same influencers who announced #BlackoutTuesday and supported #BlackLivesMatter to voice their support towards ending systemic racism in the US.

As much as it seems like we’re not bothered by their stand, we do treat our actors and cricketers like no less than God himself. And when God goes against the people of this country, those people who made him God, it hurts. It hurts because this is exactly the kind double standards we didn’t expect from them, considering they did support a good cause in the past which was someone else’s “internal matter”.

In another instance when Indian celebrities were quick to fight for justice for George Floyd, most of them completely ignored the custodial death of the father-son duo of Jayaraj and Bennix. The fact that Rihanna’s tweet has made them feel threatened is proof of their hypocrisy and selectiveness.

On one hand, where athletes like Lewis Hamilton brought out an entire revolution and made the sport of Formula One racing stand up for the eradication of colour-based discrimination, Indian cricket stars and other sports personalities including P.T. Usha, Anil Kumble and Yuvraj Singh, to name some, simply chose to stay silent during nationwide protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which was dividing the nation on the basis of religion.

Also read: Debate: The Real Reason Why Farmers’ and Anti-CAA Protests Have Been Perceived Differently

The only people who spoke even then and now are those celebs who would never get to take a group selfie with the prime minister of India.

It seems like those whom we thought were above politics and chose to stay away from topics which are not of their expertise, did end up choosing a side.

The day we decide to start treating these influencers like just another human being, we’ll understand what made them do what they did and what we need to do.

Today, actor Taapsee Pannu tweeted, “If one tweet rattles your unity, one joke rattles your faith or one show rattles your religious belief then it’s you who has to work on strengthening your value system not become ‘propaganda teacher’ for others.”

Believe it or not, she’s right. If what Rihanna did with one tweet of hers has had more impact on you than the tweets of hundreds of those whom we idolise, then you know which side of the conversation you want to be on.

 

‘The Blue Janeu’: As Critics Cry ‘Casteism’, Twitter Ducks for Cover

The lack of transparency in the way accounts are ‘verified’ or blocked has raised the spectre of the digital marginalisation of already marginalised communities.

Is Twitter casteist? The question has been raging on the social media platform for the past four days as an overwhelming number of people have joined anti-caste activists and academics in questioning the platform’s handling of users who have used their accounts to criticise casteism and Hindutva politics.

On November 2, academic Dilip Mandal’s account was locked by Twitter, which led to an outcry among his followers for his reinstatement. This followed a similar vein of protest in support of advocate Sanjay Hegde, whose account was locked twice in two days in the preceding week for posts that would not ordinarily be considered offensive in the spirit in which they were being used.

Mandal’s account was reinstated but his brief suspension triggered a wave of complaints accusing Twitter of casteism. For the past few days, hashtags like #TwitterHatesScStOBCMuslims, ##बेशर्मजातिवादीट्विटर (‘shameless casteist Twitter’) and #casteisttwitter have trended, with critics speaking of a structural inequality implicit within the medium.

At the same time, hashtags like #JaiBhimTwitter spoke to the movement of anti-caste solidarity that was taking the platform by storm. One hashtag – #SackManishMaheshwari – sought to take the Twitter director directly to account, but mysteriously disappeared within hours of reaching the number three spot on the platform.

A company spokesperson was unable to comment on whether Twitter had manually removed the hashtag – an ability it confessed to having when it said last week that it had removed an offensive hashtag calling for the boycott of Muslims because it was in  violation of Twitter rules.

Twitter has been accused of insensitivity towards the victims of caste discrimination since 2018 when its CEO Jack Dorsey inadvertently held up a poster saying ‘Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy’ only to apologise for doing so when the site’s pro-Hindutva (and caste Hindu) contingent vehemently protested. The protesters, incidentally, included a senior IPS officer who was so shocked by the message he said it had the ‘potential to cause communal riots’.

The new sacred thread

This time round, the platform faces a different criticism – its use of ‘verified account’ blue ticks as a means of classification in the Twitter universe. The hashtag that occupied first place on November 6 was ‘#CancelAllBlueTicksInIndia.”

One of the issues that has been raised by those trending this hashtag has been the manner in which the blue tick is allocated. As a badge of verification, it signifies that the individual’s account is one that is of digital value – an exclusive, handpicked club of people who are public personalities.

Also read: It’s Not What Modi Is Tweeting – It’s What He Is Reading

Dilip Mandal pointed out that the number of people who have these blue ticks tend overwhelmingly to be upper caste, relegating the mark to the digital equivalent of a ‘neeli (blue) janeu’ – the sacred thread that caste Hindus wear. He also said that as a result of the lack of transparency in the process, people like Jay Shah, the son of Union home minister Amit Shah, with 27 followers, had a blue tick while major Dalit personalities like Pa Ranjith did not.

According to a Twitter spokesperson, the blue tick programme was shut down publicly last year, but exceptions have been made on a ‘case by case’ basis to include people who are ‘active in the public conversation’ on Twitter. The process includes working with governments to ‘verify candidates, elected officials, and relevant party officials around the time of elections’ – and also possibly at arbitrary times when they are under pressure.

Prakash Ambedkar campaigning in Maharashtra in October. Photo: Facebook/VBA

Mandal was eventually granted a blue tick (unasked for) when he pointed out the representational skew. On November 5, accounts like those of Chandrasekhar Azad (leader of the Bhim Army) did not have a blue tick, but as of today, he does.

However, Prakash Ambedkar of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, an important presence in Maharashtra politics, does not.

The methodology by which accounts are punished for an infringement of the Twitter guidelines is also murky.

While the guidelines themselves are straightforward, they are contingent on ‘offending’ tweets being reported to Twitter. ‘Being reported’ is a passive way of structuring accountability – who are they being reported by? This is not something that is put into the public domain, allowing targeted harassment of minorities by established right wing troll groups to go unchecked.

The protocol that follows the reporting of tweets is also at this point unknown. All that a Twitter spokesperson was prepared to say was, “We have ongoing efforts to provide local market context when developing and enforcing our global policies. We extensively cover gender and religion (including caste) in our trainings, to provide reviewers with the local context they need to evaluate content. Our Hateful Conduct Policy prohibits behaviour that targets individuals based on protected categories (including caste).”

Photo: Twitter/@dilipmandal

Anti-caste scholar Ratan Lal’s account was also locked, but Twitter says this was for violating the guidelines of making explicit the personal information of a third party. According to Lal, however, the third party in question was a friend who was in need of a blood donation, whose consent had been taken to put out the message. He calls the blue tick situation a ‘modern Varnashram dharma’.

“Ultimately Twitter is a multinational corporation that makes profit – they have to follow minimal transparency,” he said. “The criteria [they follow] needs to be made transparent – the sons of politicians, of capitalists, of celebrities, male upper castes get blue ticks. So the people with blue ticks can give sermons, while the majority of the country – SCs and STs and OBCs – have to listen to those sermons. This is the 21st century and this cannot stand.
We are the consumers – Twitter will need to decide whether this male dominated, patriarchal and casteist organisations are the ones they want to work with, or they want to be democratic.”

On November 4, members of the Bhim Army went to the Twitter office in Mumbai and organised a lock-out. Udit Raj, national chairman of the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, in a video message posted on Twitter explained why. He talked about how the vast amounts of negative attention that activists working for the marginalised get on Twitter often forces them to leave the site itself, while those who are organising and participating in this harassment get off scot free.

Twitter has been a battleground for digital ideological warfare, but while the company goes out of its way to insist that it respects the sentiments of its users and is committed to diversity and equality, the fact remains that the platform reflects the same oppressive mores that its user base does.

Purported BJP supporters often routinely harass and send death and rape threats to public female personalities, and a sizeable number of hate accounts are followed by ministers in the Modi government, if not by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself.

Also read: Ministers Follow Hate Accounts That Made Call to Boycott Muslims a Top Twitter Trend

NDTV’s Ravish Kumar, The Wire’s Arfa Khanum Sherwani and freelancer Swati Chaturvedi – all of whom face intensive harassment on the platform – are of the opinion that these are organised ‘troll armies’ . 

Interestingly, when the Twitter hashtag ‘TwitterHatesSCSTOBCMuslim’ began to trend, a counter hashtag began as well – saying #ट्विटर_पर_राज_हिन्दू_का – ‘Hindus Rule Twitter’.

Ratan Lal says that while the BJP might have troll armies to mobilise, the hashtags being trended by anti-caste activists are not fuelled by anything but outrage and determination. “This is a completely organic movement. The people who are pushing these hashtags to trend – we are people who have to worry about our salaries lasting the end of the month. We don’t have the money to pay people to tweet for us.”

Lal says this is a question of representation. “In India, in media, regardless of whether it is an international forum, the people working there come from upper castes. Those who learn respect from the beginning, will have respect for what we want. We know that top institutions are monopolised by caste Hindus. Twitter will need to decide whether it wants to invest in diversity in their organisation, so questions like deciding whether or not someone gets a blue tick get democratised. This is just the beginning.”

On its part, Twitter insists the criticism is misplaced. Said a spokesperson, “Any time we are hosting an event, we ensure a diversity of perspectives and that voices from marginalised groups are represented. Many of our partners routinely host #TweetChats with voices from marginalised communities. We launched an emoji for Dr Ambedkar’s birthday in 2017 and prior to our public verification process being closed, we verified public figures from different caste and tribal groups, civil society and academia.”  

It remains to be seen whether an emoji will be enough to assure Twitter users that the platform is not perpetuating casteism with its opaque ways.