SOCIAL media, as the name suggests, is meant to be a social interaction among people, in which we create, share or exchange information in virtual groups or communities. True to its name, it had succeeded in generating a lot of buzz amongst various sections of the society. India is the second country in the world, only after the United States, to have crossed 100 million active users according to Facebook’s official announcement made on March 31, 2014. And, it already has a new figure in mind for India – 1 billion – almost the entire population of India! If the recent omens are anything to go by, that day is coming and it is not far away. Leading mobile operators have already started giving subscription to Facebook starting at Rs 1 a month! Facebook even intends to provide free basic internet service to mobile users and nudge them to embrace data! And who would want to miss a chance to get all the updates directly from their favourite movie stars, or get a sneak peek into the photos posted by their friends and others, especially at Rs 1 a month or probably even for free in the days to come? No wonder then, that social media has been a topic of discussion and research in the business circles! Ain’t a potential market of 1 billion users too tempting a number for corporate greed to resist? This precisely is why social media is so extensively promoted – expand the markets! Mission established. And since Facebook and Google decide what content to show and what not to, they are today two of the most valuable companies in the world – every other company pays Facebook and Google to make sure their content is displayed in their search results! Want to book flight tickets? Don’t worry – Google has already decided which flight you should take, which hotel you should stay in and which cab service you should avail of! Want to search for some information? Don’t worry – Google has already decided which information you should read! Doesn’t the fact that your choices have already been made by Google and Facebook make the job of marketers much easier? This pretty much explains the buzz around social media. Although a result of corporate effort to expand markets, one fall-out of social media has been its use in politics and activism. Much has already been said and written about the role of social media in massive uprisings in the Occupy Wall Street, the Arab 'Spring' and anti-corruption protests across our country. Before the general elections, the Internet and Mobile Association of India estimated that social media will be able to influence the result in 163 ‘high impact’ constituencies out of the 543. These ‘high impact’ constituencies are those where the number of Facebook users is more than the margin of victory in the previous elections or where the number of Facebook users is more than 10 percent of the total voters. Similarly, a study by Pew Research says that nearly 35 percent of Indian social media users discuss politics – this translates to around four crore, and it is only going to increase in the days to come. No wonder the various social media platforms had turned into virtual political battlefields in the run up to the recent general elections! At the outset, it appeared that the poll outcome could have been projected by analysing the pulse on social media, especially considering the fact that Narendra Modi led NDA was a clear favourite in social media right from the beginning. Alas, the actual poll result was no different either! However, findings of several social media analyses reveal that the saffron brigade planned and implemented its social media strategy so astutely that it could successfully 'manufacture consent'. There were a total of around 43,00,000 conversations per day on Indian politics on social media in the run up to the 2014 elections. The total buzz (activity on social media like posts, mentions etc) around the BJP on social media amounted to 21,16,562 while that of the AAP and Congress was 8,05,092 and 4,79,477 respectively. Unfortunately, the Left, a late entrant, could not match these figures. The BJP devised and implemented a judiciously planned network in social media. This network was not only vast but also optimally organised. Care was taken to such an extent that none of the major leaders of the BJP on Twitter engaged themselves in arguments with leaders of other political parties while the leaders of the AAP have continuously engaged themselves in arguments. This eventually led to the BJP always having a positive sentiment score on Twitter while the AAP flip-flopped between positive and negative score although it has got more followers on Twitter than the BJP. Though the negative sentiment does not mean much, it only goes to show the care that went into the planning of BJP's campaign. The BJP’s social media war room reportedly cost Rs 35 lakh with 30 computers and 50 volunteers tracking activities across 92,000 villages (The actual figures would definitely be much higher.) There are estimates that the expenditure on social media could be several hundreds of crores! Many employees took sabbaticals from their jobs to participate in this digital campaign. In the words of Arvind Gupta who heads the BJP IT Cell, social media was one of the most important factors in their victory. He said that social media affected 30 to 40 percent of the overall seats. He was an IIT graduate who ran his own business in Silicon Valley before he began working for the BJP six years ago. According to a tech professional who conducted social media workshops for the Congress, the BJP has got a huge manpower to trend just about anything on Twitter. In a study conducted to determine the most digitally visible political parties, the BJP stood first with 64.2 points followed by the Congress at 22.7 points, while the CPI(M) stood fifth. Social media wasn’t really social during the electioneering. What really transpired in social media was a serious effort by the BJP, the Congress and the AAP to pump content in various forms and 'manufacture consent'. The entire period witnessed an intense battle between these three parties – the better armed party won in the end! The BJP, with its massive network, infrastructure and money pumped in by the big corporates, generated and pumped enormous amount of information for the social media users to consume. Goebbels, Hitler’s Propaganda Minister in Nazi Germany said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth”. The saffron brigade has followed precisely this suggestion of their ideological brother and led the social media users to believe that Narendra Modi indeed has a magic wand in his hand to clean up the Indian society of all social and economic evils! Mission accomplished. Contrary to the intended meaning, social media is fast becoming ‘so-shall’ media, where people are forced to interact with content they’re shown rather than them being content creators. More than 10 crore users of social media are falling prey to false propaganda being carried out by the various bourgeois political parties and the corporates. The very nature of social media is threatened and it would end up being just another form of conventional media for the State to carry forward its propaganda. The trap has been set. Will we stop people from falling into that trap? Will we ensure social media remains truly social or will we allow a couple of corporations to decide what information we exchange in social media? The answers to these questions are obvious but for the answers to become reality, we need to step up our efforts in this virtual battlefield – where a battle of ideas has already begun!