There is considerable evidence to argue that narratives on social media can be artificially controlled. The way conversations played out on Twitter around the abrogation of Article 370 nearly four years ago is a case in point. It appears that the discourse was strategically moderated by some interest groups that concertedly pushed a certain kind of messaging which supported the government’s move vis-à-vis Jammu and Kashmir.
Our dataset includes tweets associated with hashtags that spoke directly to Article 370. We then studied their engagement (retweets, likes, quotes, timestamps). We looked into who tweeted how much and about what. At the outset, it is worth noting that the internet was shut down in the region for much of the period of our study.
Ideally, a hashtag trends on Twitter if there is an “organic” interest around it — perhaps famous people talk about it or people suddenly start tweeting. But a trend can be also forged — that seems to be part of the playbook of many entities, especially political parties. Machine-controlled bots or simply many determined users can coordinate and have a hashtag reach the top of trending charts. To help conceptualise broadly, we posit that there is always a “critical mass” that initiates such a trend — they set it in motion and saturate the digital space with a form of messaging that suits their cause. By occupying the top charts, they become visible and engage-worthy for a genuine user.
Unfortunately, a user cannot differentiate if what s/he is engaging with is genuinely a majority opinion or an artificially-propelled narrative. All they can see is content on similar themes on top of their feeds. Digital discourse, therefore, is not always democratically churned out.
In the case of abrogation of Article 370, between August 1, 2019, to November 30, 2019, we found that 112 hashtags that spoke to this theme (including related developments like conversations about J&K at the UNGA, Pakistan’s involvement, etc) and made it to the top five trends at least once on any day. Sixty-five of the 112 hashtags conveyed a “pro-abrogation” tone — they criticised Pakistan, the Congress party and others who were against the movement. Only a few hashtags had a neutral tone.
Over the first 15 days of August 2019, 31 out of the 48 hashtags had a pro-abrogation tilt. These 31 hashtags account for around 40.5 per cent of the volume of tweets. Between August 1 and August 5, 2019, 16 out of the 26 hashtags had a pro-abrogation tone and four of them conveyed the opposite tone. On the day of abrogation, 12 out of 18 hashtags were pro-abrogation, while only one hashtag spoke against the move.
On the day, (August 5, 2019) the decision on abrogation was taken, there was no hour when a pro-abrogation hashtag did not occupy the top 5 ranks. A neutral-tone hashtag (#Article370) occupied a spot for just six hours.
Let’s talk volume. More than 87,000 users tweeted 187.4 thousand tweets using one of the 12 hashtags that conveyed a pro-abrogation tone between August 5 and August 7, 2019. This is approximately two tweets per user — a reasonable expectation for a healthy public sphere. The data is, however, skewed towards a handful of users. Twenty-five per cent of these tweets (approximately 46.8 thousand tweets) in fact just came from 3,134 users — an average of 15 tweets per user. We posit this chunk to be the critical mass — those that set and saturate the space with a message that suits them.
Retweets further help make the point. Of the total 649.4 thousand participating users, 236.4 thousand users retweeted the same message [similar hashtags] as these 3,134 critical mass users tweeted. These 3,134 users also received 35.9 per cent of all likes (a proxy for an acknowledgement of their message) and 41.7 per cent of all replies (a proxy to measure direct bilateral engagement between users). A comparison between the strongest trend #OperationKashmir (trended on August 2 and August 3, 2019) and trending hashtags on August 5, 2019, shows that 55.1 per cent of all users who tweeted for #OperationKashmir also tweeted for one of the pro-abrogation campaigns on August 5, 2019. This confirms that a group of users form the critical mass that makes a narrative go national and mainstream — they “professionally” participate in narrative trending exercises by producing the bulk of tweet volume.
Social media platforms are tricky as tools to effectively create perceptions for political ends. However, for cases like Kashmir where the facts remain actively disputed, debates can be subverted altogether. Furthermore, not only can emotive political communication render facts irrelevant, a concerted crowding of the discourse can possibly destroy a sense of shared reality in the minds of the people. People of J&K were jolted by the abrogation of Article 370. The creation and sustenance of such artificial momentum that tends to manipulate organic discourse further rob the people of their fundamental right to be heard.
The deft wielding of rapidly advancing communication technology has led to a growth of constructed narratives that often discredit and alter facts to satisfy not just contemporary players but also cater to changing emotional needs. Facts, once crowded out, cannot be established by reason or empirical evidence. It is imperative that we begin to care about establishing factual truths by reason and empirical evidence as against the volume of content.
Jaffrelot is senior research fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, and professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s College London. Vihang is a public policy student at the Hertie School Berlin. Vignesh is a doctoral researcher at King’s College London
On the day, (August 5, 2019) the decision on abrogation was taken, there was no hour when a pro-abrogation hashtag did not occupy the top 5 ranks. A neutral-tone hashtag (#Article370) occupied a spot for just six hours. (Express Photo)
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