Anyone from India who has spent any time at all on Twitter is aware of the overpowering presence of a troll army, mostly representing a set of conservative, right-wing ideas. These warriors violently attack those who tweet news, views or opinion that runs contrary to their world-view. The viciousness, crudity and arguably criminal nature of such attacks – threats to rape and murder, for instance, are routine – is visible to everyone.
What is perhaps less known is the sheer scale on which this army operates. No individual on Twitter can fathom the widespread reach and intensity of this activity. This is where journalist Swati Chaturvedi’s book I Am A Troll: Inside The Secret World Of The BJP’s Digital Army comes in. It’s one thing to come across these tweets in ones and twos and threes, over several days or weeks, but it’s another altogether to turn the pages of a book and see them stacked up continuously. It makes you physically sick, in need of retching.
Swati Chaturvedi attacks Rana Ayyub As everyone was enjoying a relaxed afternoon after stuffing their mouths with the favourite festival food on Dussehra, a little battle was brewing on Twitter between abusive troll masquerading as a journalist Swati Chaturvedi and conspiracy theorist masquerading as a journalist Rana Ayyub. Taapsee Pannu, who took to hounding citizens on Twitter at the peak of #MeToo, was seen rather hilariously, and in a befitting way no less, defending Anurag Kashyap, addressing him as a ‘friend’ and the ‘biggest feminist’. — Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) September 20, 2020. — Swati Chaturvedi (@bainjal) March 17, 2020. Although Rana and Swati were admirers of one another, what changed was perhaps Rana blocking Swati after the latter informed the Islamist that the CBI does not report to the Home Minster. Things have been sour ever since.
Little of what Chaturvedi has put together between the covers of her book is actually unknown. What she does, though, is to try to join the dots, and establish that behind this army of abuse lies the planning and strategy of both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
It’s not just tweets, but also those ubiquitous Whatsapp forwards that people now receive as a matter of course and pass on without a second thought, assuming they’re telling the truth. Chaturvedi contends that generating these is also part of the daily operations of the “BJP’s digital army”. She also asks a crucial question: why does Prime Minister Narendra Modi follow so many members of this army of abusers on Twitter, giving many of them the opportunity to flaunt the fact that their tweets make it to the timeline of the prime minister of the country?
In fact, the book shows that the idea of conquering through social media, bypassing the natural resistance of the mainstream media in India, which is more liberal than conservative, originated in the RSS well before any other political party realised the potential of the force.
The troll who came out
Chaturvedi’s piece de resistance, so to speak, in the book is the testimony of Sadhavi Khosla, a technology entrepreneur who spent two years volunteering for the BJP’s social media efforts, but gave up eventually in disgust at what she – and many others like her – were being asked to do, and chose to tell her story to Chaturvedi. Almost predictably, the BJP IT cell, through its former head Arvind Gupta, has denied that Khosla was part of the party’s social media cell.
Khosla, too, reveals, what was already known: for instance, that attacks on certain journalists – among them Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghosh, and Rajdeep Sardesai – and the concerted campaigns against Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan were carried out under instructions. Khosla is a case study for a specific reason: she tells Chaturvedi she belongs to a family loyal to the Congress, and embraced the original offer to join the BJP’s campaign – but was gradually disillusioned as she was asked to target individuals.
While this is a somewhat naive, even theatrical, moment of discovery, it also points towards the sheer motivating power of the narrative with which the troll army has been – and continues to be – assembled. Chaturvedi’s book does not close the loop on this point, but it makes the reader think, and worry, about the compelling power of a story that can make people turn into abusive monsters online.
Channelling resentment
This is the real story in the book, though not spelt out in as many words. Chaturvedi conducts interviews with three members of this army, revealing a pattern of low confidence, tentative articulation, and an inferiority complex vis-a-vis an upwardly mobile urban society. The RSS/BJP have been prescient enough to channel these into the creation of engines of resentful energy that manifests itself through the tweets we see.
In doing this, of course, the genie has been let out of the bottle. It may only be a matter of time before the violence building up within this tweeting army spills over into the physical world. It will be too late by then.
The strategy behind the use of torrential abuse is clear: either provoke the subject into retorting in kind, or bully them into silence and, perhaps, even off twitter altogether. Chaturvedi has fallen victim to the first impulse too, as she said in an interview: “When I got serial rape threats in September 2014 I called the hyena pack ‘fuck wits’ which the Oxford dictionary defines as ‘stupid or contemptible.’”
Others have responded to abuse with abuse too, playing into the hands of a strategy to split people into taking hard positions on one side or the other, with hatred and anger, rather than rational thought, as the ammunition of this war. But with individuals arraigned against battalions, there’s no prizes for guessing which side is likely to win.
It would probably be wrong to examine Chaturvedi’s work by the conventional standards of a book. This is a piece of extended journalism, put together with an eye on immediacy, which rules out the possibility of sociological, political and psychological analysis.
There’s no doubt that those books will be written too, once a historical perspective is acquired on what is probably a first-of-its-kind social media war in the world, if the scale, violence and filthy language are anything to go by. For now, this quick package is chilling enough.
I Am A Troll: Inside The Secret World Of The BJP’s Digital Army, Swati Chaturvedi, Juggernaut.
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(This is a reprint from NewsBred).
Swati Chaturvedi Twitter News
A report appears in Wall Street Journal (WSJ). It names Ankhi Das, the policy head of Facebook in India as sympathetic to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). She is accused of allowing “hate speech” from the party’s leaders or supporters on the Social Media platform. Unnamed Facebook employees have spilled these beans. The Indian parliamentary IT panel, headed by Congress’ Shashi Tharoor, which also has Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) Mohua Moitra, are straining at the leash. The great idealists that they are–never mind they work for parties which are dictatorial—are sleepless at this assault on their professed principles.
Here, certain things don’t add up. The provocation of this report is recent Bengaluru riots. The implication is that the ugly violence was sparked off because Facebook let go a “hate-speech” against Muslims. The WSJ doesn’t name its sources which it claims are from the Facebook India fold itself. However, it has no qualms in naming and shaming the policy head of the Social Media giant.
It’s now known, through a piece by BJP’s IT cell head Amit Malviya, that if anything, Facebook is teeming with anti-BJP voices. It’s managing director is Ajit Mohan, who was a Planning Commission guy during the UPA days. Sidharth Mazumdar of Facebook’s public policy team, was once Sonia Gandhi’s strategist. Manish Khanduri, who headed news alliances for Facebook, had contested the 2019 general elections on a Congress ticket. But Ankhi Das, the policy head, is a BJP sympathizer, never mind her family is “aligned to the Trinamool Congress.” And if these names don’t ring a bell, this one would do: Manish Tewari, Union I&B minister under UPA, is on the board of Atlantic Council, which handles the job of eliminating political propaganda on Facebook.
It might bore you but a couple of sentences must not miss your attention. In the run-up to 2019 General Elections, Congress had engaged Cambridge Analytica. This company was in the business of weaponizing Facebook data and algorithms to influence elections around the world. Documents were submitted in UK parliament by a whistleblower in 2018 that Cambridge Analytica had worked for Congress party in India. Congress had been caught red-handed.
Doesn’t it beg a question if Facebook is pro-BJP or in fact pro-Congress? Just look at the names who are deleting their Facebook accounts in the last few hours: Nidhi Razdan, Swati Chaturvedi, KC Singh etc. They all are part of Left-Liberals. To me it looks a concerted attack.
Readers, now, let me pose a simple question: If Ankhi Das alone pulls all the strings and is aligned to BJP, how did the Sonia Gandhi go Live on Facebook, where she was on her “aar-ya-paar-ki-ladai” exhortation mode to Muslims, which was followed by Delhi riots killing 59 this February? If Facebook is biased in favour of BJP, how has Asaduddin Owaisi, “the champion of hate-speech” and Hizbul terrorist Burhan Wani could whip up thousands of followers on Facebook?
Who do you think is now the policy manager of Facebook? One who has perhaps used the vilest of language against the BJP and the prime minister Narendra Modi. This man is also abusive to Indian army. Does it look to you that Facebook leans towards BJP or Congress? Now we learn that Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is summoning Facebook officials to probe their role in the Delhi riots. Doesn’t it make you appear that a lion (BJP) is being hunted down by wolves?
And please don’t be fooled that Facebook once deleted accounts of Congress sympathizers. Or that Ankhi Das was a proof Facebook was supporting BJP. This is a common mode how you cover your tracks. Arguments which you could always throw at your investigators. You throw a few useless, like Ankhi Das, under the bus to appear pious. Meanwhile, parley with big matrons in the background.
Swati Chaturvedi Twitter New
Readers you would now say how does it concern you? It of course concerns you a hell of a lot. You are using Social Media platforms which has banned a strong anti-Left-Liberal voice like Dr Anand Ranganathan on twitter. All for quoting a verse from Quran. Do we need to remind how many times True Indology has been banned on twitter? Do we need to recount the hate posts which were made against Kamlesh Tewari for mentioning the Prophet Muhammad and nothing happened to them?
All this is to let you know that your Social Media platforms are rigged. Nobody knows how their algorithms work. First came the Indian newspapers with monopoly on news and ideas. Then it was democratized with the onset of internet. Now we have same monopolistic roaches, teeming on the floor, which decide who comes in into the kitchen and who stay out. The powers of this world have always wanted to rule the humanity. Whenever masses are empowered, these monsters strike back.
You and I thus stand no chance. The only hope are those who want truth at all costs. It could be you, me or a few of our brave websites. The ones who also hope that one day Indian state and its brightest would work out new Social Media platforms which we could call our own.
Swati Chaturvedi Twitter
Till then, suffer. But fight.