is nothing but thin air.
Lets start with some data-
USA Population-331 million,active Twitter users-69 million- thats approx '21 percent' of USA population.
Indian Population- 1.38 billion, active Twitter users- 19 million-
approx '1.3 percent' of Indian population.
We +
can clearly see the difference in impact of Twitter-
21 % in USA vs 1.3 % in India.
Secondly,most of the RW has been projecting it as power of Big tech as they could ban the account of the world's most powerful man-POTUS.
Not the case.
All the Big tech platforms could ban him
only after certificate of win was issued to the Democrats and Biden.
Not before that,not even when he used the platform to incite people which led to historic Capitol Hill siege.
They dared to ban an 'OUTGOING 'USA President,not a sitting one as such. RW throughout the world+
doesnt want you to see this aspect so that victim narrative can be forged and tech platforms can be brought under pressure from various quarters,ensuring they remain neutral in future.
They wont dare to go totally against the winning side in India as well.They need the market.
+
Why Alternative Platforms wont serve the purpose?
-----------------------------------------------------
What role does SM play in political propaganda? Its used mainly to influence the casual non-leaning voters towards any party. Not for core supporters . Making an alternative+
platform with same ideology people wont yield any political benefits,casual RWingers or centrists wont be part of those echo chambers .In alternative ideology based platfrms you are going to influence the person to vote for a party who would vote for the same party otherwise too.
So the influencing in case of alternative platforms dominated by a particular ideology serves NIL purpose.
Also,the role of SM in country like India decreases because of 2 reasons-
First being identity based politics is still prevalent in most parts of India,
Secondly,people+
being pulled out of identity based politics are govt schemes beneficiaries.
These 2 factors collectively reduce the number of Swing voters in India.
Therefore the growth in number of SM users in future will have an impact,but nothing comparable to that of Western countries.
This article ,though different in content,may give one further insights into how BJP gets votes and could have won 2019 elections without Social Media. One may read-
https://t.co/m4DkB1XwF3
Percentage of Indian population active on Twitter also tells us how much influence Twitter influencers have on people in real world- reason why most of them are merely 'Twitter celebrities'.Almost negligible impact.