Actor Vijay’s selfie with fans most retweeted on Twitter
The tweet from actor Vijay of a selfie with fans posted in February was the mostretweeted tweet of 2020, while cricketer Virat Kohli’s tweet announcing that his actor wife Anushka Sharma and he are expecting theirfirst baby was the most liked tweet of the year, according to trends released by Twitter.
“This year has been quite unusual and unique. One of the majorthings we witnessed was the need to connect because we were physically distanced. Digital has become the most important way for people to express connection...rejoicing in celebratory moments, standing up forthose communities impacted by the pandemic, bonding overrediscovered shows, interests and memes,” Manish Maheshwari, managing director, TwitterIndia, said.
In politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweet on lighting lamps at residence was the mostretweeted tweet, while in sports former Indian cricket captain M. S. Dhoni’s tweet expressing gratitude for a letter of appreciation by Mr. Modi was the mostretweeted.
IPL2020 and Dil Bechara were the top sports and movie hashtags, while ‘Binod’ became the most tweeted about meme during the year.
Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 topped the list of topics in current affairs that Indians had most conversations about. This was followed by late actor Sushant Singh Rajput and the Hathras murder and alleged gang-rape.
“In India, this year we played a very importantrole in three categories — informing, connecting and entertaining. Twitter became the service through which people got to know about how things are evolving, and COVID-19 became the most used hashtag on the service. Within COVID-19, there were a range of hashtags around janta curfew, wearing masks etc.,” Mr. Maheshwari said.
He added that Twitterlooked at about a million tweets from 22 cities over 100 days to understand what were the “top feelings”that people were talking about last year and compared that to this year.“What emerged was that people find joy in every day things... Ludhiana as a city topped the conversation in the area ofromance. The other one is Raipur.
Mr Maheshwari said that there was also a rise in conversations and tweets on various interests and hobbies, such as baking, photography, yoga, fitness and poetry.
“Globally, we have about 7,000 tweets per minute about TV and movies this year. In India also we see interesting trends. The Hindi movie Dil Bechara was the most tweeted about film to release this year, but immediately afterthat we had a Tamil film Soorarai Pottru and Telugu movie SarileruNeekevvaru,” he pointed out.
Asked about the regulation of offensive content and misinformation on Twitter, Mr. Maheshwari said that the “health of the conversations on the platform” was among the most important priorities and the company was investing in this area.
“We keep evolving our policies in response to what we observe on our platform. We learn about new ways in which bad actors do bad activities on the service and, in response to that, we continue to evolve our policies. Our approach there has been how do we provide more credible sources of information,” he said, adding that the company was also investing in its enforcement team to ensure the right enforcement of the policies.
“We have a global team forthat and are adding capacity there. We are also ensuring that they have the right cultural context to understand something in the context of the country that they are enforcing in. They have the relevant language capabilities as well and that is also very important,” he said.
He added that the company had invested in technology, and now “more than 50% of the tweets that are actioned on” are proactively identified by the platform.
Courtesy: www.thehindu.com
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Sambhal violence orchestrated by BJP, govt to divert attention from poll rigging: Akhilesh Yadav
Lucknow (PTI): Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Sunday alleged the violence in Uttar Pradesh's Sambhal district over the survey of a mosque was "orchestrated" by the BJP, the government and the administration "to divert attention from electoral malpractice".
Police used tear gas and "minor force" in the face of stone pelting by locals in Sambhal on Sunday as tension escalated during a second survey of the Mughal-era mosque, claimed to be originally the site of an ancient Hindu temple.
Ten people have been detained and a probe was launched into the violence, an official said.
Tension has been brewing in Sambhal over the past few days after the Jama Masjid was surveyed last Tuesday on the orders of a local court following a petition that claimed that a Harihar temple stood at the site.
A day after the Uttar Pradesh bypoll results were declared and the Samajwadi Party managed to win just two seats while the BJP and its ally RLD bagged the other seven, Yadav levelled serious allegations against the police and administration.
"A serious incident occurred in Sambhal. A survey team was deliberately sent in the morning to disrupt discussions about the elections. The intention was to create chaos so that no debate on election issues could happen," the Samajwadi Party chief claimed.
Citing reports, he said several people were injured in the violence in Sambhal and asked when a survey of the mosque was already done, why was a new survey conducted again and "that too in the morning and without preparation?"
"I don't want to go into the legal or procedural aspects, but the other side was not even heard. This was intentionally done to provoke emotions and avoid discussions on election rigging," Yadav said.
"What happened in Sambhal was orchestrated by the BJP, the government and the administration to divert attention from electoral malpractices," the former UP chief minister alleged.
Asserting that in democracy, true victory comes from the people, not the system, he said, "The new democracy created by the BJP ensures that people cannot vote while the system dominates."
He added that whenever an impartial investigation takes place, and the truth comes out through booth recordings and CCTV footage, it will be evident that "voters did not cast their votes and someone else became the voter inside the booth".
Yadav claimed that on the polling day, the police and the administration removed the Samajwadi Party's almost all booth agents and many supporters who wanted to vote.
"If voters were prevented from voting, then who cast the votes? If Samajwadi Party votes didn't reach those booths and our candidate didn't get support, then who voted there? This is a serious issue," he said.
"Additionally, there were two types of slips, -- one with a red mark and another regular slip. We raised this issue on the voting day itself, stating that the administration had created such arrangements, leading to discrimination," Yadav alleged.
The Samajwadi Party's candidate for the Kundarki assembly bypoll Haji Rizwan too has alleged that his supporters were prevented from voting.
The BJP's Ramveer Singh won the bypoll in the Kundarki seat by a margin of over 1.45 lakh votes.
