Tilt of Twitter? Right wingers’ tweets are being hidden from their followers. Here’s why I think so

It’s not a surprise anymore — to open your Twitter account and find out that you have lost hundreds of followers. 

It’s not a surprise anymore that the moment you cross a certain limit of followers (for me it's 5K), your follower count is hurriedly brought down to somewhere around a certain “limit”. 

It also hardly comes as a surprise when people following you complain that they don't see your tweets, despite being online at the same time as you and checking their timelines expecting a tweet from you.

It’s only when they visit your profile that they see you have been tweeting alright, but somehow their Twitter timeline doesn't contain your tweets.

Have you felt the same emotions at any point in the recent past? Then mate, we are on the same boat.

It’s been almost a year that I have been facing the same issues on Twitter.

But I consider myself lucky. 

There are people who have lost followers by the thousands every day. Every day, they are made to feel that they are just talking to themselves, because nobody apparently sees their tweets.

Every day on my Twitter timeline, I find specific people complaining and wondering why their follower count is seeing a drastic slash on a regular basis. Most of these users are openly supportive of the BJP, or are right wing in their political belief.

The examples are so many that it is impossible to include all of them in one article. You just need to visit some right wing Twitter handles to understand why they are so upset with the platform. 

I will give only one example. Here is Shefali Vaidya, who has a particular political view that is mostly critical of Rahul Gandhi. This is what she tweeted recently.

Have tweeted at least ten times today!! Thank you @TwitterIndia for your biases. https://t.co/BBSHA5EKA9

— Shefali Vaidya (@ShefVaidya) November 30, 2018

In my opinion, these are not isolated cases with only a particular section of people. In fact, this trend touches right up to the prime minister of our country.

Let me draw your attention to something that perhaps you have never noticed. Have you seen the level of engagement with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Twitter account and Rahul Gandhi's Twitter account?

Numbers never lie, so here’s some food for thought for you.

Narendra Modi is the highest followed Indian individual on Twitter with about 44.5 million followers. He is also the third highest followed world leader on Twitter, behind Donald Trump and Pope Francis. 

But come to Facebook and Instagram (both belong to the same company) and it's a different story. 

Narendra Modi is the most followed world leader on Facebook and on Instagram, his position remains numero uno, with more than 10 million followers.

So, there is no denying the fact that Narendra Modi couldn't beat Trump on Twitter, but the moment you step out of the platform, he is a different story. 

Ask me and I feel that there might be some sort of scuttling on Twitter, because it is impossible that he should be so way behind Trump only on Twitter and way ahead on other platforms.

So, how’s the Twitter engagement statistics like between Narendra Modi and his political rival Rahul Gandhi? 

Rahul Gandhi has only 7.8 Million followers, which means Modi has almost 5.5 times more followers than him.

You will be astonished to know that Rahul Gandhi is squarely beating Narendra Modi on Twitter, with better reach and much better engagement. 

This is not even a new phenomenon. Ever since Rahul Gandhi’s account changed from “Office of RG” to “Rahul Gandhi”, his engagement levels have seen a massive uptick. Mind it, existing Twitter rules would take away your verification badge if you try that. Changing your handle is not permitted for verified handles. 

But ever since that happened, Rahul Gandhi's engagement on Twitter has shot up. On most days, his level of engagement is almost similar to that of Narendra Modi, while on other days, he is the Twitter. 

Let’s look at a recent tweet of Rahul Gandhi (Screenshot 1) and Narendra Modi (screenshot 2). Does it seem that there is such a vast difference between the two's follower count? 

This is just an example. Scan through his Twitter account and you will notice that Rahul Gandhi has been consistently scoring over Modi. Much of Rahul Gandhi’s success on Twitter has been attributed to his social media manager Divya Spandana, while Modi's critics argue that lots of his followers are bots.

This is not just an allegation. An analysis has revealed that both handles contain bots and spam users, which is a challenge that Twitter has waged a war against. Twitter, as per its own admission, has been actively suspending bot accounts to make its platform free from non-human intervention.

But the scene hasn't changed even as Twitter is eliminating millions of bots and spam accounts from its platform. Rahul Gandhi continues to have a better reach than Modi on Twitter, despite having one-fifth of his followers.

Is this an anomaly? No, because according to my analysis, this is the constant result of the account for the past two years or so. This is actually a pattern.

While some have been attributing Rahul Gandhi's Twitter success to a revamped social media strategy, if the strategy were actually that good, it would have won him significantly more followers. However, the only thing that has improved is engagement, and not follower count. Does that mean Twitter is favouring Rahul Gandhi by amplifying his tweets through its algorithm?

Interestingly, some of those complaining their tweets aren’t visible to their followers are not BJP karyakartas, but almost all of them don't share the world views of parties like the Congress and other Left-leaning outfits.

This is a question Twitter must answer, and, till date, it hasn't. 

This question is all the more important because India is going into elections in 2019, where the world’s largest democracy will again vote to select who will lead them. As things stand now, it will basically be a choice between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi as the prime minister. 

That is why Twitter must answer whether the inherent Left bias of "some of its employees" (Twitter's own words, not mine) is at work here. 

So, here are my questions for Twitter’s global CEO, Jack Dorsey: Are some users at a disadvantage because of their political beliefs? Do you, Twitter, think that the narrative on the platform should be curated as per certain standards?

Hope Twitter is listening, because asking questions is a hallmark of any healthy community, whether online or offline.

Also read: Politics was never about courtesy, but what’s happening since 2014 is new: Here's what changed