Twitter users worldwide were flummoxed with a curious problem on Tuesday as several accounts claimed that the number of retweets and likes on their tweets were fluctuating. This immediately sparked accusations that the social media platfoom was attempting to undermine the reach of users whose ideological leanings it considered unacceptable.
“It’s a planned conspiracy,” one right-wing supporter said in a message copied to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. “Not done man.”
Dear @jack, Ur @Twitter butchered the faith of innocent users.Why r U doin so ?
— Major Surendra Poonia (@MajorPoonia) February 12, 2019
1 tweet asking transparency n U restored all retweets🤔@ianuragthakur @PMOIndia Plz hav a look,this is serious @ 9:01 PM 353 RT & at 9:07 PM back to 1010 RT
It’s planned conspiracy !
Not done man 👇 pic.twitter.com/JrjqMHb1Of
In one of the earliest complaints made about the problem, an Indian user noticed on Tuesday afternoon that the retweet count of his post had dropped from 934 to 26 within 14 minutes.
Nobody does maths as good as @TwitterIndia and @Twitter:
— Utkarsh Anand (@utkarsh_aanand) February 12, 2019
* 934 RTs at 1.34 PM
* It comes down to 453 RTs at 1.37 PM - - three minutes later
* At 1.48 PM, it is again brought down to 26 RTs
Shadow-banning or sheer manipulation? Or is the tweet you didn't like much @twitter? pic.twitter.com/acUPxa89bG
Then, the user noted that the tweet in which which he spoke of the problem faced a similar fate.
This is EPIC! I tweet about possible manipulation causing loss of RTs.
— Utkarsh Anand (@utkarsh_aanand) February 12, 2019
Hours later, @Twitter, @TwitterIndia makes over a thousand RT disappear from the other tweet too.. From 1045 RT at 8.05 PM to 474 at 8.06.
Is @twittwr a neutral platform or a platform to neutralise some? pic.twitter.com/V12sM9xiEe
The social media company apologised and promised that the matter would be looked into.
Some people around the world are experiencing an issue with notifications, Likes, and Retweets. We’re working on resolving this and will follow up soon. We apologize for the inconvenience.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) February 12, 2019
In India, insinuations quickly gained wind that Twitter was attempting to “shadowban” users or control their reach. When a user of a social media platform is shadowbanned, the person is partially blocked without their knowledge.
These allegations came against the background of Twitter head Dorsey being summoned to appear before an Indian parliamentary committee on February 25 to explain perceived bias against right-wing views on the platform. Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma tried to connect the dots.
So here’s what @twitter can do in a day’s work to one RW tweet. Reduce 1200+ RTs to 500. Then again bring-down 1000+ RTs to 700+.
— Nupur Sharma (@NupurSharmaBJP) February 12, 2019
No wonder @jack has been summoned by Parliamentary Committee. This is fraud and calls for serious investigation!
cc: @ianuragthakur pic.twitter.com/p0VMHwPziX
In midst of the confusion and anger against Twitter, there were also some other reactions to the bug.
Yesterday my tweet about News Channels fell from 600RTs to 21RTs
— Akash Banerjee (@akashbanerjee) February 13, 2019
Was in a mood to call @jack & summon him to my house for this conspiracy to silence me😠
However I realized that this could be an aberration & the tweets did eventually correct from 375RTs to 714RTs in one minute. pic.twitter.com/jvewdioISU
Curious why people are getting so worked up about RT count. Why does it matter, unless one is tweeting to get a higher count? IMHO RT count/likes are entirely irrelevant to your worth as a writer or a person. Life is short; there are better things to do than obsessing over tweets
— Salil Tripathi سلیل تریپاٹھی સલિલ ત્રિપાઠી (@saliltripathi) February 12, 2019
twitter please stop taking away the likes on my tweets they're all that I have
— gracie hoos (@cottoncandaddy) February 12, 2019