Karnataka elections not only witnessed an intense political battle between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress, but also saw an unchecked flow of mis/disinformation on Twitter – even weeks after the results were announced. But what made it worse was Twitter boss Elon Musk's recent call to give priority to Twitter Blue accounts in conversations and search.
While it was predicted that the loss of true 'verification' from the platform would boost mis/disinformation, the rapidness and the scale of its engagement were unprecedented during the recently concluded elections. As a result, posts shared by several Twitter Blue subscribers targeting political leaders – and old and unrelated videos circulated with false communal spin and misleading contexts gained seemingly higher traction.
Tweets that got an average of 40-50,000 views until January are now been getting over a million views.