Twitter Directly Targets India’s PM Modi and his Supporters as Dorsey Attempts a Putin in India
A lot of Modi supporters in India are finding out that Twitter is playing dirty games. Twitter is placing its fingers on the election scale in India. Twitter, in effect, is doing a Putin + Wikileaks for the Indian elections.
Several anecdotal instances – all belonging to Modi supporters are showing daily now as to how their retweets and likes on a post suddenly decrease all of a sudden. As if inexplicably reducing the number of followers and shadowbanning Modi supporters are not enough, Twitter is now in another role – of ensuring which topic can trend and which influencer can project his or her voice by simply monitoring and decreasing the retweets and likes! One could argue about reduction of followers – they could be fake accounts which were culled – or shadowbanning one could simply chalk it up as a mistake of a viewer. But retweets and likes on ONE post after they have been done, should remain the same or grow. Why would they decrease by thousands?
But that is precisely what people are seeing.
Look at this tweet by Akhilesh Mishra. His retweets decreased from 108 to 62, while his likes decreased from 149 to 81. Interestingly the tweet was critical of Rahul Gandhi.
Here is what I just found on my timeline at 7:53 PM (IST), and a minute later, on 12th Feb 2019. First screen shot is from notifications tab & second from the URL of the tweet. Same tweet on notifications tab shows 108 RTs and 149 Likes. In the actual tweet – just 62 and 81. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/PwaWBnbM4k
— Akhilesh Mishra (@amishra77) February 12, 2019
When the Twitter team was called by the Parliamentary committee hearing, where its CEO JAck Dorsey was called and he refused, the Lutyen’s journalist, leftist Twitter’s lapdog Archis Mohan wanted to spin Twitter into a martyr by sharing about a Twitter employee who was 6 months pregnant but had been called from her leave and she was found to be waiting with her colleagues for the Parliament committee hearing to start.
To this Shefali Vaidya asked the relevant question – why was she even called for the hearing by canceling her leave in the first place? This tweet which used Archis’ tweet as a reference, lost 120 retweets in ONE minute. This was AFTER the user who caught this mischief told about how she was probably being shadow banned!
1823 RTs at 16:20
1296 RTs a minute later.And for a long time now, I dont see @ShefVaidya 's tweets unless RTed by a select few twitter handles. pic.twitter.com/OcjYrKtncC
— ৱিকাশ সাৰস্বত Vikas Saraswat (@VikasSaraswat) February 12, 2019
Another user saw the retweets go down as well!
Wow. Saw the RT count go from 1600 to 1080 in real time. https://t.co/wTfTnhBCPj
— Anurag Dixit (@bhootnath) February 12, 2019
To this another user Smita Barooah made a tongue-in-cheek tweet and challenged twitter to mess with her.
Rahul is very intelligent. His dimples are cute.
Priyanka has her grandma's nose. She must be therefore be intelligent.
Robert is a real estate genius. I love his pink pants swag.See? I am a Dynasty fan. Twitter can't mess with me now. ????
— Smita Barooah (@smitabarooah) February 12, 2019
But apparently, even THAT tongue-in-cheek humor rubbed Twitter on the wrong side and in the time-honored tradition of Chinese fascism, it messed with the retweets on even that tweet!
.@TwitterIndia /@jack,if you want all Right leaning people to get off your platform,have the guts to say so openly.Stop your juvenile games.
4:48 p.m: 184 RT, 525 L
6 pm: Had dropped to lower 100s (no SS)
7:26 p.m: 184 RT, 483 L
What's up? pic.twitter.com/oQVeYO0Awo— Smita Barooah (@smitabarooah) February 12, 2019
And then came the reality check for everyone. Twitter was indeed playing a dirty role in Indian politics – by backing Congress and other Anti-Modi forces up. This dawned on most when Twitter tweaked with the retweets and likes on a post by the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi himself!!! So, now Twitter is directly targeting India’s Prime Minister himself! In one minute – the RTs went down from 2388 to 994 and likes went from 7540 to THREE!!!
It's happening with the Prime Minister of India. What do you expect for yourself?@ShefVaidya @vivekagnihotri @Iyervval @gchikermane
04:45: 2388 RTs, 7540 likes.
04:46: 994 RTs, 3 likes. pic.twitter.com/qWByCZuLxe— आदित्य (@13adityas) February 12, 2019
And, so many people are wondering if Twitter respects “free speech”. Free Speech, the favorite poodle of super bored, overly entitled and over-rated cabals. “Where is Twitter’s respect for free speech?” – many pro-Modi supporters are asking of the social media giant as if the world runs on morality.
They obviously never got the Twitter memo. For Twitter, Free Speech was a joke. And, its owner Jack Dorsey tells a disbelieving Wired correspondent with a chuckle and smirk.
Free speech is not a mantle that Twitter gave to itself. Duh! So, folks just smell the coffee and wake up. This is how it is. As for the government, do an EU on Twitter and give it a Valentine’s gift of a hefty fine that will make it respect a country which accounts for over 10% of the entire Twitter accounts! (India accounts | Global accounts)