Thread by @annavetticad

Since I posted this video here, I've been touched by the warm responses from so many good people, but also startled by the storm of Sanghi spammers though I thought I was habituated to online misinformation and hate after so many years of facing organised trolling. (1/n)

https://twitter.com/annavetticad/status/1487025211791003650

Communal profiling, personal attacks, defamatory comments are all par for the course on Twitter. I'm tired of speaking up about this for myself since @Twitter @TwitterIndia @TwitterSupport do nothing. So today, I wish to address another aspect of this strategic trolling. (2/n)

Apart from aiming to mess with your head, troll bosses know that even if the targeted person doesn't amplify their tweets, some members of the public will see them when clicking on the original tweet. So they flood your mentions with the very propaganda you seek to refute. (3/n)

If even 1 person is influenced by their lies, their job is done. Since my thread was about the propaganda against India's #Christian minority, that's what these trolls are trying to counter while spamming me. So I'm putting down a list to further counter their propaganda. (4/n)

1. To persist in painting India's Christian minority as aliens, Sanghis insist that mass is always in English. Fact: everywhere in the world, mass is in the language the local Christians speak. E.g. in Delhi you will find mass in Hindi, English, Tamil, Malayalam, Konkani. (5/n)

2. Sanghis get wild if you mention that #Jesus was a real person. It's odd that this information should make anyone insecure. But the truth is the truth: Jesus Christ, Prophet Muhammad, Guru Nanak, Lord Buddha & Lord Mahavir are historical figures, not mythological. (6/n)

3. To prove that Christianity is of European origin & Jesus wasn't Asian, I've seen Sanghis this week insist that the Bible was written in English & even that West Asia is not Asia🤯🙆🏽‍♀️

Don't laugh off these lines. Resources are being spent on spreading them with a purpose. (7/n)

"Ignore them" is the response one hears when raising these issues. No boss, we can't. Persistently equating India's #Christian minority with #European colonisers is part of the same strategy through which India's #Muslims have been demonised by equating them with invaders. (8/n)

I sometimes hesitate to speak about the online viciousness I encounter because I know I face only a fraction of what India's #Muslims & #Dalits suffer. But it is important to speak because we have seen very real offline consequences of ALL online propaganda & hate. (9/n)

I'm mentally exhausted though. In the past 8+ years, I've heard all manner of things from this organised troll army, including that my mother was raped by the British & I am a child of that rape. People who can speak like this to another human being will stop at nothing. (n/n)

cc: @NWM_India @IWMF @CPJAsia @pressfreedom @RSF_inter @iwpcdelhi @IndEditorsGuild