A prominent Indian social media marketing agency has, in a strange turn of events, disappeared off social media.
Social media agency Dentsu Webchutney, which manages Swiggy’s accounts, has disabled its own social media pages after some controversial tweets from the agency went viral. The tweets on the agency’s own Twitter account are now protected.
Its Facebook page also appears to have been taken down, and is no longer accessible.
Even individual employees appear to have protected their tweets. CEO Sidharth Rao’s tweets are now protected.
Individual employees too have protected their accounts.
The sudden reticence comes after a Twitter thread by user @vijaygajera went viral last night on social media. The account had unearthed tweets from Webchutney’s CEO and employees which revealed their political bias.
Webchutney CEO Sidharth Rao had liked tweets from Alt News Founder Pratik Sinha, who has often been accused of peddling an Islamofascist agenda. He’d also liked tweets with reference to cow dung, which is language that’s often used by Hindu haters to further their Hinduphobia. The Pulwama bomber, in particular, had said he wished to eliminate “gou-mutra drinkers” before he rammed his car into a CRPF convoy that killed 40 CRPF jawans last year.
Other employees at Webchutney appeared to have similar views. Another Webchutney employee had previously compared PM Narendra Modi to the coronavirus.
While these accounts have now been made private, these tweets offer some insight into why Swiggy had chosen to knock PM Modi’s supporters two days ago, responding to a tweet by a Congress-supporting anonymous Twitter account had tweeted a joke making fun of “bhakts”, which is something Congress supporters pejoratively call supporters of PM Modi. “Had an argument with my Bhakt friend over farmers protest. Had said that we are not dependent on farmers for food. We can always order food from Swiggy. He won,” the account had tweeted. Even though Swiggy wasn’t tagged in the tweet, Swiggy’s official account sent out this response: “Sorry, we can refund education.”
The response had delighted Congress supporters, but BJP supporters hadn’t been quite as impressed. All of yesterday, several thousand tweets had been sent out, criticizing Swiggy for taking a political stand, and many impassioned users had said that they’d never use Swiggy’s services again.
Interestingly, Dentsu Webchutney had tried to take potshots at PM Modi’s supporters from its client Swiggy’s account, but hasn’t quite shown the same fortitude when tweets from its CEO and employees have raised questions about its own political leanings. Until last night, Dentsu Webchutney’s Twitter bio claimed it was one of the “bravest agencies on the planet.” That line has been quietly removed as the hate-filled tweets of its workforce have gone viral.
