Meta recently admitted that money has been charged for boosting a certain type of content on Instagram. The acknowledgement came at a time when concerns were raised about the contribution of the platform's algorithm to boost the content related to Jantar Mantar student protests while allegedly suppressing the ones against it.
This concern was widely raised after the Jharkhand protests received low reach and response on social media despite stemming from the same cause of students' education and irregularities in competitive examinations.
On Instagram, posts about the student protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi were garnering millions of views. Meanwhile, posts about a similar protest in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, were garnering was lesser views.
After such reports, the government is also keeping an eye on the algorithm game and seeing the huge difference in the views received by the movement related to Jantar Mantar and Ranchi. Notably, the government is already engaging with Meta over the Instagram algorithm functioning.
Electronics and IT Secretary S Krishnan stated that the government has requested detailed information from Meta.
"We will have to examine this factually. We need to determine whether the significant difference in views between the protests at Jantar Mantar and Ranchi is due to algorithmic manipulation or simply happened," he said.
However, social media platforms generally respond to such discrepancies by stating that posts about events that receive more audience tend to receive higher views.
ALSO READ: Jharkhand Protests: Agitation Continues Despite 98% Demands Met; 5 Reasons Why Govt Efforts Failed
What keyword search data revealed
Several news portals analysed data on views related to the protests at Jantar Mantar and Ranchi. It stated that keyword search analysis revealed that there were over 5,000 posts on the Delhi protests, while there were only a little over 1,000 posts on the Ranchi protests.
The total number of posts with the keyword "Delhi CJP Protest" was 5,239. This represented only 0.001 per cent of India's 480 million Instagram users, yet during the protests, it seemed as if Instagram was flooded with young people's reactions to the Delhi protests.
The data revealed that 5,239 posts related to the Jantar Mantar protest were made from just 3,100 different accounts, which were viewed by 18 million people. Each post received over 3,500 engagements. Meanwhile, when simply replacing "Delhi" with "Ranchi" in the keyword search, the data revealed that 1,062 posts were made from 290 different accounts, with a total reach of just meager 6,00,000.
Delhi views rise after July 20, Ranchi views dip from the beginning
Following the clashes on July 20, the number of views in Delhi increased slowly and steadily, reaching 3,00,000 views per reel on the day Dharmendra Pradhan resigned as Education Minister. The situation was quite the opposite in Jharkhand. At the beginning of the protests, the number of views per reel was 2.8 lakh, but then declined.
BJP IT cell chief raised questions
BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya questioned Meta's algorithms based on the channel's analysis. In a post on X on Thursday, he asked whether there was any discrimination in what content should be boosted and what should be muted.
It's worth noting that when Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with Gen-G via Instagram video message after the Jantar Mantar protest, Meta also removed that video. It was later reposted. While Meta may have apologised for this mistake, it still raises the question: is Meta or any other internet media "commander" in control of any political or social narrative in India?
How does the algorithm work?
It's worth noting that Instagram isn't driven by followers, but by interest. Instagram Reels aren't just visible to your followers, but rather, the algorithm monitors a user's interests and displays them in their feed accordingly.
The algorithm keeps track of everything you do, like which reel you watched completely, which video you skipped midway, which post you stopped at, which one you liked, which one you shared and which post you commented on, and based on this, it shows related reels in your feed.