Praise and be paid

IN Media Watch Briefs | 10/12/2016

A Factor Daily report claims that several social media influencers have been paid to make #IndiaDefeatsBlackMoney trend on Twitter. Their brief: to share the positive effects of demonetisation. Quoting a source with 30,000 followers on Twitter, the website says that the brief comes with detailed instructions about the timeline of the tweets and also the directive that the sample tweets provided in the communication be modified. Interestingly, after reading the story, Twitter user @SamSays looked for fake tweets with this hashtag and came upon a number of identical tweets, complete with the same typos. Hmm. Will poorly-spelled paid tweets counter the negative effects of demonetisation?                                 

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The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.                   

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.                 

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