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Rajneeti, In the age of hashtags

Twitter may not admit to banning people based on their political viewpoints, but our panelists refuse to buy this argument. This week’s DNA Samwad discussed the drawbacks of the micro-blogging site and called for bringing in regulations to end hate-mongering

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Last year, when US President Donald Trump slammed Twitter for ‘shadow banning’ Republicans, the micro-blogging site was quick to retort. It denied the claims, and said it is not involved in banning people based on political viewpoints. In this week’s DNA Samwad, panelists from different political backgrounds and ideologies, and social media experts, discussed if shadow ban was a reality. They discussed if bias exists on Twitter. 

While some claimed to be victims of shadow banning and complained of reduction in followers, others denied it. They stressed on regulation of posts and countering hate. A speaker even cited examples about how it took him five years to get  mere 200 followers, while in the last four months his account saw an increase of more than 8,000 followers. The speakers comprised Ruben Mascarenhas, national joint secretary, AAP, Ramesh Solanki, Shiv Sena activist,  Ankur Pandey, right wing social media activist and restaurateur, Mandira Popat, social media influencer, George Koshy, independent brand consultant.

Ankur Pandey,  
Right wing, social media activist and restaurateur

Let me give you an example. I had an account with almost 22,000 followers on Twitter in 2015. By 2017-18, the number of followers reduced to around 19,000. I have been very active on social media for many years now. I get retweets and likes, but still my followers decreased. In July 2018, some of my followers informed me that they were unable to see notifications related to my tweets. My tweets and posts were not visible. I tried to deactivate and reactive my Twitter account many a times and in the end, I had to shut my account for about a month. I later activated my account with the same username since it was freely available. So, yes, shadow ban is a reality and I am victim of it.

Few days ago, when the popular hashtag, #SareeTwitter was trending, I realised I was shadow banned again. And, it is then that I got to know of a new term related to Twitter. The slang popularly called ‘Twitter jail’ means limiting tweets and followers per day. I never use hashtags while tweeting, most of my tweets are random. But, somehow my messages were not getting through, my followers were not able to view my tweets. Again I had to shut my account for 24 hours.

An abuse is an abuse. It makes you question, why is that a guy named Ankur Singh’s account deactivated, but a guy named Navendu Singh is still tweeting happily using exact same words. There is no Right or Left. But an abuse by right wing carry more weight age than the Left. So it has to be suspended.

The employees of a particular organisation are leaning more towards Left. Why? Why a certain Mahima Kaul or Rahil Khursheed leaning towards the Left.

Another point to be raised is of verification of Twitter account. What is the procedure to getting the account verified? The truth is, there is no set procedure. There are some political party leader’s driver’s Twitter account which was verified, but a guy from a leading political party, who has a position in the party, has to wait for six to seven months for his account verification.

Showing a particular community in a bad light, using a lighter way to abuse, is very common. Every left guy, uses the word ‘cow piss drinker’, isn’t that hate? Why are these guys not banned? Any brand wouldn’t compromise on  its credibility. We need to understand that Twitter’s evaluation and its revenue generation.

What is Brahmanical patriarchy? It is just an abstract to insult Hindus. We can’t quantify Brahmanical patriarchy with the help of data. The data and the platform can be manipulated. And, it is being manipulated against the Right leaning people.

Talking about investors or funds, where does the Twitter gets its funding from?  Most of the funding comes from Saudi Arabia. Twitter is not making money or generating revenue through advertisements. They raise money more through bias, and it is very much evident. The system can be manipulated and it is manipulated against a  certain ideology. It should be equal for everyone. I don’t think there should be special privileges for any one.  

George Koshy,  
Independent brand consultant

Why certain people got suspended and their accounts got blocked has a set of algorithm for it. It may be because of objectionable words, certain terminology that is unacceptable and too many people red flagging that particular account over a very long period of time. The allegation that this happens to a particular set of people only, is prevailing in almost every country. For example, if you take the US, there is either left-wing or right, nothing in between, unlike India. Smaller countries like Estonia might also face this despite the number of users being too small. So it’s all based on an algorithm. 

Fundamentally,  yes, technology associated with human beings are biased, but, Twitter can’t hire people on the basis of their ideology. They check their qualification and hire employees not their ideologies. And this is how every organisation is built. Bias may reflect in potpourri of words that are used. In the digital space, brands can have biases. Imagine two brands at each other’s neck. They talk well about their own product while showing the other down, that’s is exactly what is happening in politics. But, it is very difficult for us to decide who is biased and who is not. 

Brands do not  have borders anymore, you cannot launch a brand in India and not expect that people in the US won’t see it. So what we say and write has to have a very broad perspective.

In the cyberspace, what we take for granted is the server. There is a limit to what you can create and there is always the extent to which you can build. At some point of time, the bots clog up the system and drags the entire system down. From a  pure-play standpoint, you get so many images which in turns slows your phone and then you go back and delete data you don’t need. That’s the entire process of purging and all media platforms do this.

They get rid of the bots which clog up the system.

I help brands develop a base and  I see Twitter is a great platform to build on their own equity. When I spend time with the CEO, I  give them an example. In Sholay, when the actor climbed upon the water tank because he wanted everyone to hear him. If he did not climb then he would have had to go to every individual and every house personally. Twitter has multiple tanks and those tanks grow when your followers grow. Twitter was created for a very clean purpose, to enables a person to put his message out to as many people in one go. 

The term influencer started catching up after social media started thriving. Earlier, we used to know of a handful of people who mattered, now we are bombarded by a thousand people, and we think each person is important. Each person can use this platform effectively to make someone else’s life different by reaching out to them through a single message and Twitter has achieved that. When a technology is created by an individual, biases will always come in because it is only human to be biased, it’s up to us to objectively accept what is biased and figure out a way to think about what is not required and what is important.

Mandira Popat, 
Social media influencer

I have personally experienced shadow banning and have seen others being  banned too. On the technical side, there is an algorithm, it has certain keywords and certain phrases. This algorithm has been designed by people who input these keywords. So in short, there are a set of people who are driving this with an agenda. There are certain words and accounts which are being flagged. When we speak about hate accounts, let me tell you, I don’t post controversial things, but there are Left wing hate accounts which are never flagged. They do post hate content, but, I have been flagged multiple times. I post tweets that have a hint of certain ideologies I believe in, and I have noticed that after some time, I start to lose followers and my reach will be limited, all this because of the ideology I believe in.

This has been the case with many people who follow a certain ideology, and the people who are designing this algorithm have a certain bias, and that’s the main issue. 

Suresh Prabhu was not tweeting any hate speech or controversial things but his account was a victim of shadow banning because again, he belongs to a certain ideology which accompanied his tweets.

I agree that no organisation can hire certain individuals based on an ideology. However, it has been said by the Twitter founder as  well as Mark Zuckerberg that they do have individuals who lean towards a  certain ideology, so there does exist an inherent bias from the people who are running these organisations. Secondly, people spoke about funds being pumped in and I don’t think media expenses are bad but it is not relevant to the discussion where voices are being suppressed.

Many say that we loose followers because of bots, but let me tell you, the traction that we receive is that a non-bot account would give you and yet my follower count went down. They disregard the issue by telling us about the concept of bots, keywords or using the wrong choice of words, this is just simplification of matter but the other Left-wing ideology accounts who do the same are not being flagged or shadow banned. The core issue is that there is bias in the organisation, their employees and their keywords which looks in to flagging and suspending certain accounts. Let’s look at facts and have a holistic view that what the core ideology of Twitter is. It is observed that nothing is being done to those accounts which follow a left-wing  ideology.

There have been various accounts that are active online and even on the ground. For example, Dhaval Patel whose account was  banned for three months leading up to the elections. Ashu Muglikar, his  tweets were blocked leading up to the election and he posts factual tweets which are economy-related. Someone said, that BJP spends a lot on social media, but the big name in this business, Cambridge Analytica was hired by the Congress party. 

Twitter has changed the way we produce content. Everyone here has a voice, but voices are being suppressed and people are being shadow banned for having a certain leaning. Those are being targeted whose views don’t match with the ideology of  Twitter. If you disregard it, then you are building a platform for hatred against the right-wing, and so there is an inherent bias. We should talk about what can be done to solve it,  instead of brushing it under the rug. We should wake up to the idea that voices are being suppressed and we should raise our voices. We should investigate why this is happening and rectify it as well. We need to demand measures for rectification.

Ruben Mascarenhas,  
National joint secretary, AAP

When we talk about abuse on social media and bias on basis of that, let me point out that abuse doesn’t belong to either the Left or Right wing, an  abuse is an abuse. Having said that, I am surprised that Right wing who  controls the entire narrative of media feels that their voices are being muzzled. The kind of money that was put on social media before 2019 elections primarily on Google, YouTube  and Twitter, it was massive.  Right wing was over 50% while the remaining comprised of the rest in terms of spends. There are creators of information and consumers of  information, when democratisation of internet is done, it comes with  responsibility. Earlier, the news media would create information and we would consume but now everyone can create information. When you see an account suddenly loosing followers, it was simply the bots being removed. Let’s take the example of BJP trending something, if you go to find out the root of that tweet and where it was tweeted, it must be somewhere in  Thailand or Cambodia, which is no where even related to BJP. Talking about shadow ban, there maybe a short period of time where a wrong decision must be taken but it is reversed as soon as possible. But shadow ban, in form of a large conspiracy to muzzle people doesn’t exist. When we speak about language and words, what matters the most is the context. Some words don’t mean what they mean, the context is different. If a large number of people are saying something wrong, we can look up to that, but saying that shadow ban is a conspiracy, I wouldn’t agree to that.

How bots work? Bots would basically retweet for some keywords in particular context. The bot is programmed in a particular pattern to see what the person has been tweeting and observe the pattern and follow it. Even if you use same keywords and say the complete opposite of what was intended the so called bot will go and tweet it in that particular ideological manner. Bots exist to amplify the voice of people without the people even realising that they have been used. Twitter at its base is a  micro blogging website. When you post content, there’s something called dog whistle politics, that’s happening. A post by Vaidya said Ola-hu-Uber, now is there a problem in those words Ola or Uber? No. But now when those words are being used with a particular context, they are downrightly hateful, unacceptable, targeting a particular community, discrimination against a community and racist. Certain words are meant something else and used in another context. That is racist and harassing. 

Talking about patriarchy, our Constitution supports equality before law and is against discrimination, so smash Brahminical Patriarchy is constitutionally  correct and we should not get confused between this. 

Coming back  to somebody being banned, any algorithm works on weightage. Freedom of expression is fine, but that doesn’t mean you use it to spread hate. ‘Report abuse’ by anyone should not take their freedom to express, I agree. But when you get banned it is because of all the other previous complaints against you which have been proved and that’s when your account gets suspended or blocked. The problem is not mere suspension of accounts, the problem is when this manufacturing of fake news and when this artificial part of the ecosystem (Twitter) works against some people or community. If Twitter suspends any account and people who think they have enough evidence and feel that it’s a conspiracy, they can simply go and file a complaint.

Ramesh Solanki,  
Shiv Sena activist

In Shadow banning let me tell you, in 2014, I had a 9,800 followers and to reach 10,000, it took me five years, due to the shadow-ban. After 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the shadow-ban was removed from my account and I  reached 18,000 followers in a mere span of four months. All the Right-wing accounts were shadow-banned, their reach was curtailed. It was a situation where our voices were almost crushed by Twitter. 

Irrespective of BJP or some other political party, the money is invested in the people who are working for them. In other words, the money goes to the party or the workers, it doesn’t go to Twitter. Funding for Twitter comes through Saudi Arabia so they will obviously do as per the wish of the Saudis. 

When CEO Jack Dorsey came to India, some so-called journalists organised protests with banners like  ‘Smash Brahminical Patriarchy’, so the issue of funding doesn’t come here. If you make me Twitter head today, even if you call me Sanghi or Shiv Sainik or whatever, I will happily tell my people to work and when someone will raise a voice from the other side, I am going to curse them which is exactly what’s happening right now in the country. 

Ambedkar Caravan posts abusive tweets  about Hindu Gods day and night. However, no action is taken on them in spite of numerous complaints. When I personally complained to Twitter that this particular person is inciting people through his abusive  tweets, they sent me a message stating that they agree that the user is violating Twitter rules and regulations but there was no action taken against him. If this isn’t bias, then what is. 

When a Hindu girl or a boy tweets something, withing three hours, they are in jail, but when someone abuses Hindu Gods, they roam around freely, this raises questions about the law and order situation. It is my constitutional right to complain, I don’t go and beat them around. Many have suggested that you are a Shiv Sainik, why do you complain, go and beat the person up but I have changed the narrative. I prefer the way of the law. In my defense, I had not written anything offensive, I was just stating the facts. I am not an enemy of some community, I was banned. My problem is that I was banned for countering.

As far as the suspension of accounts is concerned, I get complaints everyday, they are sending me vulgar videos of Hindu gods and goddesses, it is a sin for us to even open and watch those videos. But our complaints go nowhere, we get absolutely no response. The answer by Twitter is typical, “This  does not violate the rules and regulations.”

Bots are fake accounts which have absolutely no reach. The discussion regarding bots is completely irrelevant in this discussion because they are fake. Our discussion is about the rise and decline in the number of followers.  Like, I was following Ankur and suddenly I start to unfollow him without me doing it. 

Recently Anurag Kashyap sparked a  controversy by saying that he was threatened and abused to garner publicity for his show Sacred Games. Instead of tweeting, he should have filed a police complaint. And blindfolded, Left wing supported him. No one even checked if he was saying the truth or not. Previously, he had used similar kind of gimmick when he had abused Municipal Commissioner and Uddhav Thackeray when director-producer Yash Chopra had died.  There is a bias towards the right wing and there is a constant attack to muzzle our voices.

DNA Analysis

While one group claimed that bias existed on Twitter, the other outright denied it. Those who agree are mostly from an eco system that is bent towards the Right wing and those who disagree include people from the other side of the spectrum and those working in the digital and technical field.

When it comes to shadow banning, there are multiple examples, which includes the likes of Suresh Prabhu, former central minister, who complained that his followers were being removed. Prabhu tweeted, “My dear friends. Noticed a disturbing trend, many of your posts get deleted selectively on my timeline. Would request @TwitterIndia to take note. Also observing for a while now, followers get removed. Hope my friends will appreciate that its being done without any knowledge to us.” 

Not only Prabhu but even Subramanian Swamy complained about this phenomenon. He had tweeted, “Some PTs are complaining that their tweets to me are going invisible. Does that mean I am being subject to shadow banning?” This also raised an issue on whether profiles with many followers and from the Right wing were facing an undeclared ban, so as to reduce their reach. Many from the Right wing claimed that this phenomenon of shadowing people does exist, and this is done so that reach gets limited.

There are two things that make people believe you on Twitter, firstly the verification badge and secondly the number of followers, if it starts dwindling that means there is an issue.

Lastly, biases towards suspension of account is what many discuss. They point out that the Twitter handle of a 'True Indology' gets suspended, also of those who report non-right leaning handles to police face suspension, but that of people tweeting against the national interest remain and even thrive. Even this exposes the biased that exists.

However, while there are many such examples where people have been complaining about selective action against Right wing users. There exists a bunch which claims that there are algorithms at work and there is no bias when it comes to suspension of an account. They say that every social media platform has certain rules and regulations to follow, and Twitter is no different. Any objectionable content that would turn into hate speech will call for an action. The regular suspensions are results of the same. Some even attribute the lowering of number of followers to bots, keeping whom on the server is nothing but an additional burden on social media platform operators.

The conclusion of this is, the numbers do dwindle on social media platform and there are many complaints too. However, there is no concrete answer. Whether there exists a shadow ban or no, this remains a mystery.

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