Thread by @akshaygandhi

#NupurSharma V/s #IStandWithZubair
Issued in Public Interest
“Dog Whistling” - SocialMedia & how it works
There are 3 kinds of people on SocialMedia:
1.The average joe like me, who is an “Internet Nobody”. Nobody cares what we share. The noise we make is a data point. 1/22

2.Then we have the celebrities, influencers & public persons called “Virtual Celebrities”. They are the content creator in reaction to which people like us make noise. 2/22

3.Lastly, there are the loudest ones. They are the “Bots & Trolls” – the anonymous ones. The most interesting of the lot. They can become amplifiers on rent but they would only come into play when they are signalled to do so. 3/22

I was going through the trends to find #IStandWithZubair trending in India. This was in solidarity of Mohammed Zubair who is a verified twitter handle @zoo_bear & also a co-founder of altnews.in and self-appointed “Fact-Checker” (it’s a real job description). 4/ 22

Of course, he is a “Virtual celebrity” with over half million+ followers on Twitter. He had taken down his Facebook page saying that he had received too many threats for #Hindus. He thought it best that he took his page down for his own safety. Optics: What a pitty. 5/22

I found the pretext under which Zubair was crying victim a little unrealistic. Assuming that he is a journalist/media personnel, Zubair is likely to believe in the #FreedomofSpeech as he runs a news portal that depends it. So, gave it a go & tweeted as shown in the SS. 6/22

Being an Internet Nobody I got some Instant gratification within 15 minutes as 1 like from a friend & 1 retweet from a random person. I was curious as to how find out who found my little post worthy to be retweeted on their own timeline. 7/22

It was Shaikh Anwer. I do not follow him. It does appear that he like Rahul Gandhi a little too much. In that case definitely, he is not following me. I have been critical of his hero in manners similar to the to my post for Zubair. 8/22

The only way he came across my tweet was through HashTag discovery. But, who follows every post of a HashTag?
I ended up visiting his profile. Turns out Shaikh Anwer is quite interesting. 9/22

The Bio suggests as follows
1.The Name: Shaikh Anwer
2.Location: United states. It must be afternoon there as it was 1:00am IST for me
3.Following: 29
4.Followers: 100
5.Number of Tweets: ~14,400 i.e. 1 per 144. Not funny. Not mocking
6.Not followed by anyone I know. 10/22

Who are the followers of Shaikh:
Since there were only 100 it took me only a few swipe up’s to scroll though. I gave it go. Few some interesting points:
Most followers are allined to the same religious community.
The one that catches the eye is definitely “Lies of Modi”. 11/22

& right above that is Farmer ki Beti cum socila activist.
Many of them call themselves Social activists.
& ofcourse the one from across the border. Shah Farooq Khilji – PTI Social media team.
Its an interesting boquet. 12/22

Moving on - Who are the elite few who get the pleasure of being followed by Shaikh Anwer?
A bunch of Twitter-BlueTicks. Some realy famous people. Along & star of theday Zubair. I did not want to go through the 14k+ tweets but I was curious about what Shaikh Anwer tweet’s. 13/22

He definatley does not Tweet much. Why did he find my tweet interesting & who does he RT like he RT’ed me.Have a look: Mostly muslim names. Marked in orange – the speed of reaction of Sahikh Anwerto his contemporaries. Similar number of RT’s per tweet. 14/22

Also note the orgins of QT’s from politics, other media houses & brother hood. Spot the odd one out (me). Note the RT’s are being done for Tweets of his followers & not for the ones he follows. That means he knows his followers well enough to coordinate mass action. 15/22

It is evdient that Shaikh Anwer is not much of a writer. Orignal posts are being done by people how follow Zubair closely. His unquie talent is that he can go to a given hastag. Then retweet at the speed of light. Most retweets are done by Zubair’s own muslim Brotherhood. 16/22

It is evdient that Shaikh Anwer is not much of a writer. Orignal posts are being done by people how follow Zubair closely. His unquie talent is that he can go to a given hastag. Then retweet at the speed of light. Most retweets are done by Zubair’s own muslim Brotherhood. 16/22

Now ir was clear that because he retweets faster than he reads or probably cannot even read, he ended up retweeting my post.. Interestingly he never RT’s the famous people he follows. Enough of SS and Picture comprehension. Straight to the point. The Discovery.17/22

So, if Zubair wants make is victim crying #IStandwithZubair trend, he can blow a “Dog Whistle”. On his command the army of Bot & Trolls like Shaikh Anwer will indentify the hastag. They will retweet at such a pace that it will escalate the trending postion & stay on top 18/22

The trending topic attaracts attention & increases the populatity so that it can be capitalised to raise funds in the name of protection or servicing the financial costs of his news portal. Evidence is donation requests are plenty & frequent on Zubair’s timeline. 19/22

This weapon of “Dog Whisteling” was potentially used in case of BJP spokesperson @NupurSharmaBJP who is the vintim of onging contoversy & communal tension which saw several causalties. Zubair chose tweet a purposely edited video clip to instigate his religious brother hood. 20/22

This was achieved by pushing the trend hate against Ms. Sharma in social media using this army of Trolls & Bots. Ms. Sharma now faces death threats, rape threats upon herself & her family. 21/22

There were communal clashes on the streets resulting into causalties & also loss of life of innocents including a police personnel. I refuse to see this Dog Whistling barbarian, a conman, a coward as the custodian of Fact & Truth. 22/22