In this pandemic, we’re engrossed in attempting experiments. Social media is the arena where everyone spends a lot of time to relieve boredom and to demonstrate what we feel. Scrolling any social media feels like exploring opinions, views of various people. Every day, there is a hashtag trending all over social media.
It occupies more of the part of Twitter with hate-mongering, racism, bigotry and what’s not? People spew hate each day and night to drive out their political agenda. When Twitter started back in 2006, it felt like there is a platform to express views and opinions freely. No matter how mundane or trivial. Despite being growing into a news platform, it has become like every other social media. Now, Twitter is more about peddling fake news, negativity and abuse. The conversation being debated on Twitter is not even organic. Either it’s a well planned political agenda or people’s own hatred to manipulate twitter trends.
The problem is, the unwillingness to agree to the disagreement.
Some people spread their agenda by planning to boost hashtags through Facebook and WhatsApp groups. People take pleasure in sharing abusive posts and hashtags. Except for this, political parties are also spreading their agenda by bot tweets to boost traffic towards political issues.
Here is a gist of trending hashtags for 3-4 months.
In India, there’s always a hashtag being on the trending section about Hindu or Muslim. It feels like #hinduphobia and #islamophobia is a favorite hashtag of some people. These hashtags are propaganda and a selective agenda based. What’s disgusting is the hate and the filthy language it contains. Whether it’s left inclined groups or right, both have their own machinery to spread the agenda on Twitter.
Criticising someone is fine, abusing is not. In the name of freedom of speech, no one should abuse someone on social media. Cyber bullying and abusing someone on the internet is an offence. But “PM ko abuse krna is fine.” Well, the world of twitter is a hypocrite in its own way. Nowadays selective outrage is something we all see on social media.
There’s a recent case of cruelty towards the elephant, in which various media houses spread fake news. Journalists mentioned the incident has happened in Malappuram but in reality; the place is Kottopadam. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi tried to communalise the entire thing. Now, it floods social media with communal comments. From being a case of an elephant’s death, it has ballooned into a Hindu-Muslim thing. Besides this, people of Malappuram are being demonised on social media by users.
Hashtag Is An Art And Person Is An Artist
If somebody wants their hashtag to be in the trending list, he/she should be an artist. An artist who can convince or persuade people to tweet under their hashtag. Many groups and social media forwards helps them to accomplish their task of a trending hashtag. On Twitter, people are using this art for their political agenda and propaganda.
Apart from this, there are many hashtags that contain so much hate, filth and fake news. More of them even violates Twitter’s policies, but it takes days to remove offensive posts. There are still so many tweets present on Twitter despite violating Twitter’s policies. It shows the company’s content review process is not consistent.
Why Twitter is not taking any action? Do really their policies work? People even blamed Twitter for being biased. Is there any strict law for fake peddlers and hate mongers?
What Could Be The Solution?
Twitter policies are there, but the working and content review process is not up to the mark. Personally, we reported many tweets which violates the guidelines, but Twitter seems to be blind to see that.
- Recently, the French parliament makes it mandatory for social media companies to remove content within 24 hours or within some hours of being flagged by users. Yes, they passed a law and Platforms could face fines for not doing this. We need this in India too, to stop this hate content on twitter. Well, some of you must think the government could misuse this, but it has more benefits than misuse. Politically driven hashtags will no longer exist. Hate and bigotry run deep in our society and have an audience of a million people. Also, fake news or any sensitive video clip targeting minorities generates lakhs of views. It means more money for these social media companies. That’s why we need strict laws to combat hate on twitter. It is time for the government to direct tech companies to either find a fair way to do this or start giving fine for vitiating the society. The aim of intervention is not to oppress the internet, but to make a safe place.
- Twitter’s policy needs many changes, from the content review process to maintain the neutrality of the platform. You cannot share anybody’s number on twitter, it violates the guidelines under private information. Still, people shared it in the past and it doesn’t violate any guideline. Hashtags promoting hatred and bigotry seems unaffected by Twitter’s policies. The company should focus on its content review process, bots won’t work. If bots could do everything, then we surely don’t need any human to work. Top tweets and ranking works on recency (publishing time), relevance (keywords), engagement, rich media (gif, video, image) and various other factors. New guidelines and proper reviews are a must. Otherwise, fake news or filthy content on social media will continue to build a wall among people while politicians reap the benefits.
People highly influenced by their ideal politicians and the communal thaughs whether it’s right or wrong and follow it blindly. It’s allover the world. But still the society is Doing good due to majority of people like us who thinks from own mind and heart and act after analysing it properly. Communal and political extremists don’t like us as we don’t talk or act as per their desire.