The Day the World Started Tweeting!

On this day, exactly a decade ago, a new online service was launched. After its launch in 2006, the word “twitter” acquired a new meaning. Twitter, till then was meant to describe chirp of birds, then took on a whole new meaning. It took the world by storm and has been growing in leaps and bounds since then.

The model of Twitter was similar to SMS service, which was in vogue those days. The key feature is that one can broadcast his / her messages to a huge audience. This feature suddenly brought the world much closer. A Hollywood or Bollywood star can type whatever in his mind within the 140 character limit of twitter and it reached to his/her millions of followers the next moment. Not only movie stars but all celebrities like sports stars, musicians, and politicians took to it as it provided instant connect with their audience/ followers.

For the common man, it provided an opportunity of interacting with his idols and stars. Reading a tweet by his favorite actor or sports icon gave him a sense of closeness with them. A fan of Shah Rukh or Salman or Aamir got to read what were they saying in an instant, giving him a never before connection with these stars.

Done now ladies and gentlemen. Thanx for ur interest in #AskSrk .Apologies to those who didn’t get a reply. Love u & will b back soon.

— Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) July 11, 2016

It got so famous that these celebrities have millions of followers on Twitter. Some actors like Rajinikanth or Kamal Haasan were late entrants to Twitter, but they were greeted with much fanfare and touched a million followers within days of being active.

Apart from these celebrities, this also gave the common man a platform to voice their opinions to many numbers of people. These gave rise to mini-celebrities on Twitter, who were famous on Twitter with their followers reaching thousands. This phenomenon especially favored right wing thinkers in India. With the majority of media in India being either liberal, the center of left or left leaning the voice of the right wingers or pro-nationalist were suppressed for a long time. Twitter gave them a platform to express their opinions and opportunity to interact with like -minded people. This opportunity was not there earlier. So a working mother or a homemaker or a college going kid became a mini – celebrity on Twitter for their views and garnered thousands of followers.

Twitter also found its place in politics. Mr. Subramanian Swamy, currently a BJP MP in Rajya Sabha, was one of the first politicians to take up Twitter as a means to connect with his followers, whom he fondly calls PTs or Patriotic Tweeples.

PTs : New problem: when publicity relentlessly seeks a politician. 30 OVs outside the house, 200 missed calls from channels and paparazzis ?

— Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 29, 2016

The Indian Prime Minister Mr.Modi is leading from the front with using Twitter for good governance. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, the BJP used Twitter effectively leading to one of the opponents to admit openly that the BJP was miles ahead regarding social media connect.

Appalled by the horrific attack in Nice. I strongly condemn such mindless acts of violence. My thoughts are with the families of deceased.

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 15, 2016

Numerous case studies emerged about how people and celebrities used this social networking site. The BJP supporters, who were professionals in their life, tweeted consistently, and anti-corruption and anti-congress hashtags were trending on a daily basis during the lead up to the 2014 elections. Post elections, the PM, has been using Twitter as a tool for good governance. The talk is that the performance of various ministers are monitored regularly, and one of the parameters is their activity level (no of followers, no of tweets) on social networking sites.

Of the current union ministers, two ministers Ms. Sushma Swaraj (External Affairs) and Mr. Suresh Prabhu (railways) stand out for their active use of Twitter in governance.

#NiceAttack
Indian Embassy in Paris
Helpline : +33-1-40507070.

— Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) July 15, 2016

There have been instances of Indians suffering abroad tweeting to Ms. Swaraj and her office promptly acting to help them. Some passengers of Indian Railways, when faced with an inconvenience in the train, have tweeted to Mr. Prabhu and prompt action has been taken to address their concern.

Dnt worry Alok ji,they will not b travelling alone.Railway family wil tk care.Do tweet/call 182 in case of any issue https://t.co/PMOxQG6ZVF

— Suresh Prabhu (@sureshpprabhu) July 15, 2016

Such a highly acclaimed and hugely popular model is not without its share of negative issues. Trolls are a major concern for some users. Trolls in themselves are not the problems because; actually a troll is someone who is sarcastic on another person on social media.

Bibi @RanaAyyub can you expose this Sanghi? Tell him there are only freedom fighters, no terrorists, in Palestine. pic.twitter.com/GLVP5GKz6V

— Eminent Intellectual (@padhalikha) July 15, 2016

There have been many funny instances of trolling and many people actually like them.

No superhero was born, by just honking the horn! #PleaseDontHonkUnnecessarily pic.twitter.com/67wXjvjdHO

— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) July 14, 2016

In some cases the person being trolled also expressed his like for the sarcasm contained. It all took ugly turns when some people started using abusive languages and threats of violence on Twitter. These people got branded as trolls and brought disrepute to trolling.