Note: This is the first of a two-part series column where researchers from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Gujarat discuss issues of free speech and expression, fairness and transparency in light of allegations of social media bias around the globe and in India. In this column, they present a brief backdrop to the discourse on bias meted out against conservative users and their opinions on the political-ideological leanings of Twitter. The columns are based on an extensive research study carried out by the authors where opinions of 500 Twitter users in India were sought on the issue of platform bias.

India Post 2014: Political and Media landscape

India in the post 2014 era - often labelled as Modi’s India, New Resurgent India, Hindu dominated India, Intolerant and Fascist India by the establishment media in the country and across the globe, has come to be of significant interest to the world at large.  Post the historic victory of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014 and then 2019, the ideological divide between the liberal left and the conservative right has glaringly deepened. On similar lines, the Indian media landscape transformed significantly with the rise of social media spaces for news and information sharing, entertainment and networking. The post 2014 media edifice witnessed the revival of the liberal right intellectual. Mainstream Media (MSM) which offered a dominantly left-oriented prism of analysing events and shaping popular narratives in the country (owing to a lack of ideological diversity); was compelled to respond to the challenges posed by increasing virtual footprints of their ideological counterparts.  

The history of post-independent Indian politics has been that of domination by the ‘liberal progressive’ variety represented by Nehruvian socialism and state control over economy; covertly transfused to socio-cultural spaces such as academia, media, civil society organizations, art & culture. A study by CSHN Murthy shows about 60% of media professionals, including academics, opining that in the post independent era, governments under Nehru and Indira Gandhi exercised immense control on the import of newsprint and allotment of advertisements to the media. The national media (precisely the Times of India and The Statesman) customarily toed the government line. Mainstream media newspapers solidly stood by Nehru as unquestioning supporters of the Congress party during crucial events for the Nehruvian regime. This affected the constructivist approach of the media which tilted towards hype and spin-doctoring (Murthy, 2010).

The Indian left received state patronage and was at the forefront of the country’s socio-religious affairs. Veteran journalist J. Gopikrishnan pointed out to 60-70% of mainstream Indian journalists being members of left-leaning organizations like Students’ Federation of India (SFI), All India Students Federation (AISF), All India Students Association (AISA) (I Support India, 2017). A western liberal inclination immediately after independence led to the marginalization of the political right and provided negligible space for the traditionalist, India-centered discourse in the country’s public institutions and public life. This explains the increasing use of social media as an avenue for political communication by the conservative wing in Indian politics, media and academia to express their views. 

The steady rise of right-wing leaders across the globe is a notable trend in the past few years. From Donald Trump in the US (2016) to Marine Le Pen in France (2017), to Geert Wilders (Netherlands, 2017) to the victory of Conservative Party’s Boris Johnson in UK elections (2019); the political right is on ascendancy. Literature reviewed for the study conclusively proved that one of the major factors behind the rise of the political right globally is its use of social media. Little gatekeeping, openness in discussion and presence of a multitude of political opinions led the political right to capitalize on social media use (Serrano et al., 2018; Schroeder, 2018; Stier, Posch et al., 2017; Chadha & Bhat, 2019). World over, right-wing political parties, groups and leaders have successfully used social media to challenge erstwhile establishment media, contest the hegemony of ‘Big Media’, make it more participatory and feedback oriented, less elitist and allow common media consumers to voice their opinions on important political issues (Nagarajan, 2020). 

Social media has served as the nerve-centre of the battle between the ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ in India. Alternative news and opinion platforms such as Niti Central, Swarajya, OpIndia, Indiafacts that emerged to express alternative ideological opinions were referred to as purveyors of propaganda and misinformation in collusion with BJP’s IT cell by the establishment media. Social media’s prominent role in the current political and ideological discourse in India can be attributed to MSM’s eroding credibility and to the successful use of social media by the BJP in its 2014 election campaign (Ali, 2014).

Backdrop to the Research

Online social media users are now breaking news, disseminating it without the intervention of ‘Big Media’, busting fake news, scrutinizing MSM coverage and even challenging popularly accepted interpretations of historical, political and religious incidents. Twitter is one such important platform for initiating online public debate.  In India, before the micro-blogging site became a potential platform for citizen journalism, digital activism on socio-political issues established its strong imprints as a virtual public sphere; it was mostly used by big corporations and celebrities for brand management and marketing. Twitter served as a means of political mobilization among youngsters during the India Against Corruption movement (2011) led by Anna Hazare, election campaigns in 2014 & 2019 by all major political players and was in the recent past employed for hashtag activism during protests against the Nirbhaya gang rape (2012) and the #MeToo movement in India (2017).

According to data published by Statista Research Department, Active Twitter users in India are estimated to be 18.8 million as of April 2021 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/242606/number-of-active-twitter-users-in-selected-countries/). With the inevitability of social media in political and public life, Twitter is perceived to be a liberal, equalizing and democratic space for all kinds of political opinions. Believed to be controlled by none to having little censorship; Indian Twitter users credit the platform for exposing them to an unconventional political narrative which was marginalized in public memory for a long time in the country’s political history owing to the hegemony of elitist media. In February 2019, however, a group of Indian citizens protested in front of Twitter India’s office against the company’s policy towards right leaning users. This led to the constitution of a Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Information Technology.

Several Twitter users and influencers pointed out to shadow ban and suspension of prominent right-wing handles, remarked that Twitter was deliberately targeting pro-Modi (read right-wing) handles- like downsizing follower count, delay to accord or withdrawal of the verified status of popular handles (blue tick) and interference in the Indian General Elections 2019. Under this backdrop, the study was initiated with an aim to explore opinions of Twitter users vis-à-vis platform bias towards the right-wing in India and to understand their views on the constitution of the PSC and its role in countering social media bias.

A chunk of the literature reviewed for the study is in the western context since academics and researchers in the west have majorly focused on social media use by conservative political forces. Commentary on the issue in western media is replete with empirical evidence, perspectives and discussions on political developments related to anti-conservative bias that social media platforms exhibit. The study explored opinions of Twitter users about the ideological-political inclinations of the platform in view of several right-wing handles being suspended/shadow banned/restricted by Twitter in the recent past and the PSC summoning Twitter officials for an explanation. An online survey was conducted with 500 Twitter users in India through snowball sampling. The researchers also documented right wing discourse on Twitter bias as expressed by right-wing political leaders, influencers and intellectuals.

As seen below, the authors trace important developments in the discourse around Twitter’s role in India and across the globe and accusations of bias that it faces from several quarters.

Table 1: Important developments in the Twitter timeline [2018-2021]

August 2018 - August 2019
August 2018	Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says, “Twitter has a left leaning bias but that doesn’t affect Twitter’s content decisions”. The statement was made in the U.S when summoned for a hearing by the Congress (Bowden, 2018). US President Donald Trump accuses social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook of silencing ‘conservative voices’ and affirms that he will not let this bias persist.
January 2019	January 26 - Right-wing users consider suspension of handle @squintneon as early signs of Twitter Bias against Indian Political Right. #RestoreSquintNeon trends on Twitter (OpIndia Staff, 2019).
February 2019	February 1 – Jack Dorsey denies allegations of Twitter bias against conservatives in a podcast show hosted by American artist Joe Rogan (Rogan, 2019) February 3 - #ProtestAgainstTwitter trends on Twitter February 5 - A protest in front of Twitter India’s office against the company’s policy towards right leaning users in India leads to the constitution of a Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Information Technology. PSC summons Jack Dorsey to provide an explanation regarding safeguarding citizen’s rights on social media platforms. Twitter CEO and senior officials refuse to appear before the PSC. February 12 – Several conservative Indian Twitter users (Utkarsh Anand, Swati Goel Sharma, Sushant Sinha, Ankur Singh, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra) express concern over drastic decline in the number of likes/retweets on their tweets by posting screenshots and calling out Jack Dorsey for an explanation. Priyanka Gandhi’s Twitter handle receives the coveted blue-tick without a single tweet being written, the handle shows 1.5 lakh followers.
April 2019	Complaints of Twitter suspending, shadow-banning popular right-wing handles to meddle with 2019 Lok Sabha Elections in India are seen.
May 2019	#BringBackTrueIndology trends on twitter after Twitter user @trueindology known for scholarly work and prodigious interest in Indian history, gets suspended. During the same time @trueindology points towards coordinated attempts to silence the handle’s efforts to provide an alternative version of Indian history laden with facts and evidence.
August 2019	Twitter suspends account of noted Kashmiri Pandit activist Rohit Kachroo days after he exposed NDTV’s depiction of Kashmiri Pandits being unhappy with the abrogation of Article 370 in one of their programs.

 

October 2019 - October 2020
October 2019	October 11 - ABP News journalist Vikas Bhadauria accuses Twitter of ‘muzzling his pen and journalistic freedom’ by forcing him to delete a tweet about the gruesome murder of an RSS worker in Murshidabad, UP. October 12 – Twitter is found taking no action over a derogatory tweet by Indian author Devdutt Pattnaik which directs abusive language towards a woman. Twitter gets called out for selective targeting based on ideology. Twitter decides to ban all political advertising on its platform with effect from November 22. CEO Jack Dorsey says, “…political message reach should be earned, not bought…”
November 2019	Twitter India lands itself into accusations of being a casteist platform after users charge the micro-blogging platform with not verifying active accounts of people belonging to the lower caste and minority community (using hashtag #cancelAllBlueTicksinIndia). The accusations emerge after academic and columnist Dilip Mandal’s verified Twitter account is restricted. Mandal is known to be ideologically left leaning.    Supreme Court Advocate Sanjay Hegde decides to go to court after his Twitter account was found suspended over a 2017 tweet. November 7 - Twitter India issues clarification on aspects of political-ideological bias on the platform by reaffirming that it is impartial and does not take action based upon any ideology or political viewpoint. https://twitter.com/TwitterIndia/status/1192384055884447744?s=20
May 2020	Twitter labels several tweets by US President Donald Trump as manipulated and misleading.
June 2020	The Twitter account of a famous and iconic dairy cooperative in India – Amul - @Amul_Coop – was briefly blocked after it posted an advertisement with a caption "Exit the Dragon?" during the Indo-China border conflict.
October 2020	Facebook and Twitter are called out by conservative users for censoring/limiting the spread of a New York Post story critical of Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, in the run up to in the 2020 US elections.

 

January – July 2021
January 2021	8th January - Twitter permanently suspends outgoing US President Donald Trump’s handle; claiming the risk of further incitement of violence, based on doubts expressed by him towards the legitimacy of the 2020 elections and the occurrence of voter fraud. Tech giants Google and Apple remove social media app ‘Parler’ from their play store. Parler is believed to be a popular networking platform among conservative users and opinion-makers.
February 2021	Following the farmer’s protests in India over the farm bills passed by the Parliament, Twitter blocks several accounts in India that are accused of sharing false information over the issue and for trending #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide. Twitter then allowed these accounts to return and operate citing “free speech” and “newsworthiness”. [The Indian government ordered Twitter to block 1,178 accounts that were allegedly linked to Pakistani and Khalistani propagandists who were spreading misinformation and provocative content on farmers' protest]. Govt. of India sends notice to Twitter for unblocking controversial accounts related to the #farmbillprotests as these accounts were withheld based on a legal request. February 25 – Govt. of India announces new, stricter social media guidelines to be followed by tech giants such as Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, YouTube. Platforms are now required to set up clear grievance redressal mechanisms and assist government agencies in investigation.
May 2021	Documents released by the BJP alleging the Congress party’s involvement in a systematic and coordinated campaign against the Modi government (Congress Toolkit) are designated as ‘manipulated media’ by Twitter. Delhi Police files an FIR against Twitter in connection with the ‘Congress toolkit’ case and questions Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari. Twitter ‘permanently suspends’ Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut’s account after she tweeted about the post-poll violence in Bengal (appeared to Twitter as a call to violence). May 26 – India’s new IT Rules 2021 (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) come into force. These are applicable for digital news, social media, and OTT platforms and require the setting up of a three-tier grievance redressal mechanism.
June 2021	Govt. of India serves one last notice to Twitter impressing upon it to comply with the new IT rules 2021 failing which the platform will lose exemption from liability under the IT Act. June 17 - Union Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad says that Twitter has failed to comply with the new IT rules. He says, “Twitter was given multiple opportunities to comply with the same, however it has deliberately chosen the path of non-compliance.” This results in Twitter losing legal immunity in India. Twitter seeks more time from the Indian government to comply with new IT rules.
July 2021	Twitter loses its intermediary status and is now responsible for all content posted on its platform. Twitter has appointed Vinay Prakash as its Resident Grievance Officer for India and has also filed its first compliance report as of July 12. Twitter publishes a Transparency report stating the details of action taken by it against 133 posts.

 

In the second column in the series, the authors will present a discussion of results and analysis deduced from primary data collected from 500 Twitter users on the subject of platform bias.

 

References:

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BBC. (2021, January 9). Twitter 'permanently suspends' Trump's account. Retrieved from BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-55597840

Doval, P. (2021, February 8). Amid row over 257 a/cs, Centre asks Twitter to block 1,178 more. Retrieved from The Times of India: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/amid-row-over-257-a/cs-centre-asks-twitter-to-block-1178-more/articleshow/80740666.cms

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Mathew, L., Aryan, A., & Manoj, C. G. (2021, May 22). Twitter marks BJP leader’s post on Cong ‘toolkit’ manipulated; IT Ministry steps in, calls it biased. Retrieved from The Indian Express: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/sambit-patra-tweet-manipulated-media-toolkit-twitter-7324737/

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OpIndia Staff. (2019, October 12). Abusive author Devdutt Pattanaik calls a woman ‘bitch’, Twitter finds no violation of its rules. Retrieved from OpIndia: https://www.opindia.com/2019/10/abusive-author-devdutt-pattanaik-calls-a-woman-bitch-twitter-finds-no-violation-of-its-rules/

OpIndia Staff. (2019, August 11). Day after Kashmiri Pandit activist exposed NDTV, his Twitter account suspended for ‘violating Twitter rules’. Retrieved from OpIndia: https://www.opindia.com/2019/08/rohit-kachroo-ndtv-koshurrohit-twitter-suspended/

OpIndia Staff. (2019, October 11). This is nothing but lynching my right to expression: Twitter India forces journalist to delete tweet about Murshidabad murder. Retrieved from OpIndia: https://www.opindia.com/2019/10/twitter-censorship-crime-murshidabad-murder-journalist-forced-to-delete-tweet/

OpIndia Staff. (2019, February 12). Twitter users complain about mysterious reduction in number of retweets of their tweets, allege foul play. Retrieved from OpIndia: https://www.opindia.com/2019/02/twitter-users-complain-about-mysterious-reduction-in-number-of-retweets-of-their-tweets-allege-foul-play/

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