I am no longer on Twitter

After pondering for several months, I have decided to leave Twitter. 

Twitter has been a very productive companion for me. It helped me interact with academics and researchers from around the world, and kept me updated with their work. I may still sneak into the public Twitter pages of my favourite academics to learn what's up with them and their connections.

I am leaving Twitter because of its very flawed design that enables hate in the public with real world consequences. Along with WhatsApp (about which I wrote last year in ProMarket), Twitter is the favoured platform for spreading misinformation, disinformation and xenophobic call-for-action in India. In the US, there is a significant discourse on the role of Facebook and YouTube in spreading visceral and false information (see the Stigler Center report (blog here) on digital platforms). However, the negative impact of platforms like WhatsApp and Twitter on our public conversation has been ignored. Both these platforms are wild and anarchic. I like this aspect of these platforms. Twitter is a massive list of billions of 280 character messages that millions of people are posting from around the world. I appreciated this anarchic nature of Twitter. It was raw and hence vibrant. But, the "trending" column of Twitter - although meant to be an organic reflection of public sentiment - has been hijacked by coordinated and strategic coalitions dedicated to the spread of propaganda. 

Over the lasts few years, thanks to a barrage of xenophobic public misinformation on Twitter and WhatsApp, I have seen dehumanising language become the new normal in private conversations. A significant fraction of people are today convinced of conspiracy theories about inter-civilisational conflict. The world has become more hysterical. Such "clash of the civilisations" narrative has turned normal people into active belligerents, and people are viewed as soldiers on "their" side of the fight, or of the "others". Such a narrative - of a state of perpetual war - helps autocrats gain and maintain power, but it only fools people. The only way to stop such a narrative that dehumanises the "other" is to improve the systems of public conversation such as Twitter. I have a very simple request: Twitter, please remove your "trending" column, which is being used today to promote outright Nazi propaganda. This call is not new. Last year The Verge also wrote an article on the same. 

My trigger for leaving Twitter came during the recent deadly Delhi riots, Twitter began to nationally trend a call to economically boycott Muslims. Both the riots and such a call for economic boycott were orchestrated, and Twitter was a willing amplifier of it. I find it rather odd that a company with such technical expertise is incapable of identifying organic trends from inorganic/orchestrated/coordinated ones. I would not protest as much, if such controversial sentiments were organic. I support unfettered free speech. But it is irresponsible for Twitter to amplify orchestrated hate campaigns through its "trending" column that remind of the 1933 Nazi Germany.

As I see it, Twitter may be a useful tool for me as an academic - to network, share and connect. But at a broader societal scale, Twitter has become an enabler of visceral hatred and falsehoods, which has left scores of people dead in Delhi's streets. This is inexcusable, and I can not be a part of such a hate machine.

I hope Twitter fixes its problems, and removes its "trending' column. I support uncensored free speech, including the ones that are controversial, blasphemous or offensive, but I can not support the muzzling of the original voice of the people by orchestrated hateful and false propaganda, that platforms like Twitter amplify. Once Twitter becomes a more dignified place for public discourse, I will be happy to be back on Twitter again.

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