Zee JLF 2018 | Fanning offline riots by fanning online hate, says Swati Chaturvedi

The social media has become a propaganda machine that is fanning online hatred, and there is a need to develop platforms where discussions can take place after everyone is heard.

This was the subject mooted during the session ‘Active Listening and the Anger Epidemic’, on the final day of JLF.

“Social media is an eco-chamber, where you only hear views that you reinforce or the prejudices. It is now being used as a propaganda tool a lot by anyone who has that spread,” said a journalist Swati Chaturvedi.

“My fear, as a citizen of India, is that we are going to start fanning offline riots, because we are fanning online hate. We need to let go of the anger and listen. But, what you are being fed is not people speaking to each other, it is a huge propaganda machine,” she added.

Chaturvedi then explained by giving example of Digital Shakhas being developed by Rashtriya Swayam Sevak. “Ram Madhav, general secretary, BJP, said RSS feels they’ve been persecuted over the years. They feel social media is their place. They’ve developed digital Shakhas. But, outrage is an end to an argument. The re-tweets are paid for, and in Thailand there is a village which trends everything BJP writes. It’s like a call centre, you go there 9-5, tweet out hate and banality of evil,” she said.

She also informed that WhatsApp is the new medium of choice as there is no editorial filter there. Chaturvedi explained the concept of ‘Headline Management’ where a particular event is highlighted to suppress the actual news by citing journalist Arun Shourie’s statement.

“Arun Shourie, during and interview, said that this government is brilliant at headline management, it can’t manage events. It has composite media that has cheerleaders that manage headlines,” she said.

Arun Maira, former member of Planning Commission of India, in response stated that there is a need to have formats of discussions, in which people can really converse and listen to each other.

“I am very concerned that the format of discussions on social media doesn’t encourage listening at all. It’s something to do with the medium itself. The nature of the medium enables you to connect with anything, anywhere. Every new technology has a potential for good and bad. Social media emerged as the saviour of the world, and we are now trying to put the Genie back in the bottle. The conversation of how to manage social media cannot be done on social media, and you can’t do it in regular media as that has also become a business,” Maira explained.