Unless India creates its own social media platform, the voices of Hindutva will be suppressed by private organizations like Twitter and Facebook.
Social media has really been a boon to many in the world, but it has also become a tool for silencing free speech. Deplatformization by social media companies based on frivolous complaints has made social media practically useless for a dialogue. Twitter and Facebook have been notorious in suppressing freedom of speech, especially of Hindutva groups. When a simple innocuous reply against hate by Wahhabis can get an activist deplatformized, that is called deplatformization. Many accounts such as @trueIndology, @vashimant and others have been deplatformized for speaking facts against the attacks that they have faced. Many individuals are joining Parler and other social media groups that are not as leftist as Twitter. It’s time for countries such as India to ban private corporations that seek to control the voice of millions. There should not be any fear of expression unless someone is organising a violent act against any individual. A healthy society needs clear and open dialogue.
Hindus make up the world’s third largest religion and they have been viciously targeted by Twitter and Facebook. Unless India creates its own social media platform, the voices of Hindutva will be suppressed by private organizations like Twitter and Facebook. Ideally, there should be a law that requires these organisations to approach courts before anyone is deplatformized. In the United States, Parler has picked up amongst conservative voices. Even Donald Trump’s campaign has joined Parler. Twitter India must be banned in order to protect the rights of tens of millions. Indian politicians must not use these foreign platforms that can also potentially be used by the global intelligence community.
There are many alternatives to Twitter now, such as Mastodon and Parler. This has been a big relief to many in the conservative, logical and intelligent user base. That Twitter has gone extreme left favouring Islamic terrorist supporter groups has not gone down too well with most ordinary users. Abuses against Hindu religion are tolerated and those who respond against these are blocked. Twitter India works almost like a caliphate in that they regularly block many nationalist handles. The leftist ideology of copy editors puts freedom of expression of even logical and civil conservatives at risk. Facebook and Twitter especially have been known to demoralise users even after charging them for advertisements. It is the act of suppression of free speech that is troubling most democratic societies.
A country as large as India doesn’t have a national social media platform, which is puzzling. China has WeChat. It is a big security risk for a democracy as large as India to have a national dialogue on a foreign platform. Leaders such as Narendra Modi and other Indian leaders on a foreign platform need to reflect when their fellow conservative citizens are banned. Who judges content at popular sites such as Twitter is a big question. Religion based content, especially by Hindu mainstream groups, has been specifically targeted by content editors. Terror narratives are peddled by a leftist media ecosystem. Any defence by Hindus is immediately blocked. The @trueindology account has been blocked many times for no apparent reason. It’s really a good time for Hindu Americans and Hindus to choose another platform or build one to voice their opinions. Relying on Twitter is a waste of investment. Twitter is usually not the best platform to advertise business also as its reach is fairly limited.
Facebook too has been accused in the past of silencing the voices of conservatives. A Republican Congressman is seeking at least $250 million in a lawsuit that alleges Twitter censors conservative voices through “shadow-banning” and makes money from “abusive, harmful and defamatory” content. Shadow banning is the practice of making a post visible only to the person who created it. The platform also suspended the @AOCPress account created by conservatives to parody freshman Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, despite the fact that it had apparently followed Twitter rules and labelled itself as satire. The man who ran the parody account, Jewish conservative Mike Morrison, who tweets personally at @OfficeofMike, also had his account “permanently suspended,” according to activist Courtney Holland.
Solutions for Twitter and Facebook:
* Break them into multiple corporations.
* India must have its own social media organization
* Deplatformization should be considered a civil offence against the rights of individuals.
* Before anyone is deplatformized, a court approval must be needed.
For those starting out, I would definitely advise to begin using alternatives to Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is biased against people from non-Abrahamic religious orientation. It’s time to deplatformize Twitter and Facebook by users.
Credits: Wikipedia.org, Google Search