The business of Twitter Trolls

New Delhi: Elon Musk’s decision to keep the Twitter deal temporarily on hold over the extent of fake accounts on the microblogging platform has put the spotlight on a revenue stream that Twitter has become for professional trolls.

The importance of Twitter in terms of opinion building has long been proven. It has become an imminent platform for political parties, agenda setters and brands to drive the narrative.

In India, armies of Twitter trolls are owned by political parties, brands, ministries and even state governments. Politicians, actors and companies that are often in the line of fire have their own Twitter trolls, who work as mercenaries.

The job of these trolls is to set the agenda. The government use it to amplify their message, which is later picked up by mainstream media. The opposition uses it to attack the government and brands use it to mitigate negative reviews or any attack against them either by the right-wing or the left-wing and at times by competition.

Recently, a Mint investigation found that a network of seemingly coordinated Twitter handles appeared to be working to drown out criticism of Ola Electric on social media and build a positive narrative for the brand online. Several of them also work in a coordinated manner to trend other topics or promote other brands as well, indicating they are likely either accounts created by digital media agencies or freelance networks that work for multiple agencies, the investigation had found.

In India, there are lakhs of accounts mostly anonymous and some verified who exist only because they make money via trolling.

“If we put together the top 10 digital agencies (mostly run as shadows for political parties), they operate around a couple of lakh accounts. When Twitter picked up pace in India around 2014, a lot of these accounts came into existence. They’ve gathered lakhs of followers over the period. Some of these accounts who used to troll for political parties have even gone on to become full-time politicians. A Delhi based social media user was made spokesperson of a large political party a year ago,” said a digital media executive.

Who are these Twitter trolls?

These accounts can be anonymous or mainstream. They are managed by agencies and there’s a rate card for tweets, retweets and quote tweets.

“People running these agencies are prominent account holders. They’re mostly anonymous accounts, either being run as a parody account of a prominent opposition leader, a Hindi film hero or a villain of yesteryear. They have several politicians, actors or journalists empanelled with them,” a person who runs a social media agency told NewsDrum.

These people are paid to tweet. The right-wing has its own people, the opposition has its own. “These accounts do a side gig too by tweeting on behalf of brands,” said the person.

The person claimed that even the government engages them very frequently and ministries have set up cells which are funded through the PSUs. State governments also engage them on regular basis.

“Every agency has a list of a minimum of 100 prominent accounts who troll people for money. They troll political leaders, journalists and brands. The profile of these influencers varies from a small-time political leader to spokesperson of political parties. Several former journalists and independent authors have made a career out of trolling,” said a person who used to manage social media for a Delhi focused political party which has now expanded to other states.

How much money do these trolls make?

A popular account with a little less than a million followers (being run as a parody account of a prominent opposition leader) earns anything upwards of Rs 60,000 per tweet.

Another account that runs in the name of a popular Bollywood villain charges Rs 50,000 per tweet.

“Political parties, politicians and brands are spending anywhere between Rs 5 lakh per month to Rs 1 crore per month on them,” added a person who runs a Twitter management agency for a political party.

During the recently concluded UP election, the party, which could not win, spent upwards of Rs 5 crore just on Twitter.

“They had roped in several prominent journalists and former journalists to tweet against the incumbent. Apparently, one of the former journalists, who used to work for a business paper, is also hopeful of a Rajya Sabha berth as a reward for her relentless tweeting against the incumbent government and right-leaning mainstream media,” said a Lucknow based social media agency owner.

The former journalist mentioned above also trolls in favour of a prominent corporate and helps them in their Twitter outreach. “Over the weekend, the former journalist reached out to several influencers including journalists to tweet the statement of the group’s promoter on a large deal in the infrastructure sector,” said a person who received regular inputs from the former journalist.

“The former journalist targets competition too and ensures that any trolling of the industrialist or his group companies from opposition parties can be countered,” the person added.

Also, when it comes to the rate card for trending. The troll army charges anywhere between Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.25 lakh per hour.

“For trending, they have a few driver accounts which are backed by several micro accounts. The driver accounts have followers in thousands and lakhs. Whereas, micro handles will have around up to 2000 followers,” said the person quoted above.

A Delhi-based digital media executive who claims to work with several central government ministries on a contract basis said that trolling has become a full-time profession for many who gain followers by tweeting polarising material.

“You gain traction on Twitter by sharing content which is polarising. Over the years, either through this or through humorous content, several accounts have become highly prominent which are now used by political parties and brands for slander,” he said.

“A clean up of Twitter is important as it was meant to be a tool of mass media and not slander. If Elon Musk does go ahead and buy it, he should focus on ending this slanderous universe Twitter has become for commercial gains,” said a senior executive of a digital policy think tank.