Clip the blue bird: Discursive strategies of Hindutva digital mobilization against Twitter in India

Abstract

Though early research suggested that right-leaning groups were a radicalized monolith, recent shifts in research are producing far more nuanced accounts. Our article contributes to this effort by spotlighting novel discursive strategies of right-leaning groups in India that leverage decolonization rhetoric, democratic governance, and other seemingly left-leaning rationales to mobilize right-wing groups against global technology companies, especially Twitter (now X). 1 We collected and analyzed publicly accessible data from Koo—an alternative social networking platform populated with discourses of India’s ideological right. We then used critical discourse analysis to identify the discursive strategies of right-leaning users on Koo deployed to challenge the power of global technology companies – calls for data localization, veiled suppression, and paternalism and responsibility.