Barkha in twitter storm over Mallya tweets

Image Courtesy: Pepper Media
Arjun Arjun folomojo staff

Twitterverse today, in addition to being a broadcast platform, is also a hunting ground where people are held accountable for their changing views and opinions. Shifting loyalties, changes in opinion and innocuous comments are very quickly juxtaposed against what the same people had said in the past, bringing to light how quickly minds change depending on the political tide and fortunes.

Barkha Dutt found herself in a similar storm a few days ago, when her audience took a hard look at her conversations with the fallen king of good times, Vijay Mallya. The two have exchanged several tweets in the past, with Mallya opining about statements made by Barkha, and Barkha making casual observations on things said by Mallya, on politics and otherwise.

 

 

 

In wake of recent developments and Mallya’s ‘flight’, it looked as though a lot of people were making efforts to distance themselves from the Baron. Many folks, keeping these earlier conversations in mind, tried to dig up some of her tweets, questioning her friendship with someone who is said to have fled the country. The attempts gathered steam with a lot of people claiming Barkha had deliberately deleted some of her older tweets in order to escape scrutiny.

 

While most people joined the party, trying to criticize her for her alleged actions, some other like @ARangarajan1972 also attempted to dig deep to figure out the truth behind the uproar. Eventually, it looked as though a lot of people had been misled due to the fact that the said conversations were not displayed in a ‘threaded’ fashion in twitter. While the questions and responses all seem to still be there, the fact that people could not find it where they expected it to be could be the possible reason for setting this fire alight. The same twitter user also pointed out, in another tweet, how no content seemed to be missing

 

Was this indeed a case of playing Big brother to the extreme, and did ‘brother’ get it all wrong this time around? Is there anything more to it – given there’s no smoke without a fire?

While platforms such as Twitter do make it easier for people from all walks of life to be heard, the confusion that prevails with differing statements and media reports is bound to stay.

 

Also read:

Can the NDA government bring Mallya back to India?