I was misquoted. Someone from my team mistakenly posted it. My socialmedia had been hacked.
All above sounds too familiar. Well it’s not uncommon to hear these from public figures to disassociate themselves or attributing the mistakes to an ‘outside agency’ from a controversial statement or socialmediapost to clear themselves.
The current situation being same for the SupriyaShrinate, former journalist and social media in-charge of Indian National Congress, the leading opposition party. An alleged post (now deleted) containing objectionable remarks about actor KanganaRanaut, who is now the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) candidate from Mandi Lok Sabha constituency in Himachal Pradesh has triggered a political storm. While Supriya has disassociated herself from the post stating it was one of her team members who may have posted it and also a parody account using her names is being operated which had posted the same, the BJP is mulling legal action.
All this is bound to heat up the social media war. The upcoming election2024 is the 3rd wave of hashtdigital elections in India, its no more just about having digital presence it also brings the question on who is managing your digital presence. It is expected that most leaders are genuinely busy and will not be managing their accounts directly, the same way as many leaders use speech writers. Some political leaders take help of their “IT Cells,” for content and amplifcation / broadcasting on a variety of social media channels.
It was in Sep 2009 when the then MoS for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor had redefined ‘cattle class’. The 12 words on X (then Twitter) posted sarcastically as a response to a query was enough to land him in trouble with opposition leaders (BJP that time) demanding an apology and ruling Congress party leadership struggling to explain Tharoor’s apparent contemptuous elitism.
While the Cattle Class was a case of ‘genuine’ mistake there have been many cases where the problem was different.
In May 2020, an Instagram post by Shubham Malik, son of Umesh Malik, BJP MLA from Budhana in Muzaffarnagar went viral. The post compared India and the US ‘unfairly’ on various parameters, largely socio-cultural aspects and showed India on a poor light. The post was deleted and the lawmaker claimed that his son’s ID was hacked to tarnish his social and political image.
When it comes to using social media to engage, there is certainly many a slip between the cup and the lip. In October 2016 journalist Danish Raza did a detailed report on how some official Twitter (now X) handles of union ministries and institutions posted offensive, partisan messages. This is against the original mandate of such bodies- they are only meant to broadcast government initiatives. How did these mess-ups happen?
It’s quite an unSOCIAL world out there.