On Birthday, Modi Starts Following 59 New Twitter Handles But Refuses To Unfollow 'Trolls'

Modi followed a large number of handles of right-wingers. While a few of them are verified accounts, most of them are unverified.

Outlook Web Bureau

Updated on: 19 September 2017 1:34 pm

On his 67^th birthday on Sunday, Prime Minister Modi Started Following 59 New Twitter Handles but hasn’t still unfollowed 'trolls', including Nikhil Dadhich who had abused slain journalist Gauri Lankesh, despite popular demand.

Soon after the murder of Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru on September 5, the Opposition and twitterati have been criticising Modi for following some Twitter handles which had abused the slain journalist.

In the prime minister’s defence, the BJP said he never blocked or unfollowed anyone on Twitter. The party even slammed Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi for following trolls on the social networking site.

According to an India Today report, the prime minister followed 59 new handles on Twitter on Sunday -- his 67th birthday. The total number of handles he follows now has 1,838 now.

Of the 59 handles PM Modi followed, 23 are verified accounts. Modi has neither unfollowed nor blocked anyone, including Nikhil Dadhich, who wasted no time in posting a tweet shortly after the murder, saying: "Ek kuttiya kutte ki maut kya mari, saare pille ek sur mein bilbila rahe hain."

The prime minister followed at least two ex-servicemen. a number of party functionaries of different states, NITI Aayog vice-chairman Rajiv Kumar, journalists Navika Kumar, Anjana Om Kashyap, Rohit Sardana, Rahul Shivshankar, Vamsee Juluri, Amish Tripathi, Vikram Sampath, Arnab Ray, Vishweshwar Bhat and Ishaan Prakash.

Modi also followed a large number of handles of right-wingers. While a few of them are verified accounts, most of them are unverified, the report said.

Earlier in the month, a war of words erupted on social media and escalated to the extent of making a hashtag urging people to block Modi trending on Twitter.

Many Twitter users blocked the PM angered by reports that some of the users who have been cheering Lankesh's death are followed by Modi (personal account). The hashtag:#BlockNarendraModi is now treading on the social networking site.

Trends are determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored for you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location. The number of Tweets that are related to the trends is just one of the factors the algorithm looks at when ranking and determining trends, says Twitter.