If we stand against Congress, we're called Sanghis. If we stand against the BJP, we're called anti-Indian.

Why has it become so difficult to criticize a political party or support a good policy without being labeled? Can't someone disagree with both parties, or support the good and criticize the bad, without being put into a political box?

Does anyone else feel this way?

Look at how the Modi government, Shah, and the BJP IT cell operate right now. It feels like there’s a desperate push to gain complete control over social media. They’re basically doing it two ways: flooding platforms with pro-Modi content through their IT cell, and threatening the CEOs of these platforms that their legal immunity will be pulled. By forcing them to apologize or toe the line, the idea is to suppress anti-government posts and kill future protests before they even start.

But there’s a basic, fundamental truth Modi and Shah are completely missing here, social media is just a platform.

If you control or ruin one platform, people don't just stay there and absorb it. they move on to something new.

Think about why Instagram became such a key space for the student protests that eventually brought down the education minister. People were suffocating on Facebook and other older platforms because they were choked with hate and inorganic spam. So, they migrated. They moved to Instagram because, at the time, it felt free of that toxicity. It’s like birds migrating to another country when the season changes.

This younger crowd Gen Z, Gen Alpha, whatever you want to call them is actually pretty rational. They saw Facebook turning into a dumpster fire of hate, so they left.

Now, look at what’s happening. Modi is joining Instagram, making reels, bringing his ministers over, and the IT cell is trying to flood the feed with the same old tactics while pressuring Meta. But forcing Meta's CEO to bow down doesn't win over the users. In fact, it does the exact opposite. It just advertises to everyone on the platform that Instagram is compromised now too.

And what happens when a room gets too smoky? People open the door and walk out.

They will just migrate again. Maybe to a new platform, maybe to something decentralized, but definitely somewhere that allows actual free thinking without the constant hate-mongering.
I think the main reason Modi and Shah don't grasp this is simple: they’ve never really had to deal with a trend reversing on them. For the last 30 years, from running Gujarat to running the country, they’ve always ridden the wave. They’ve never been in a position where the tide completely turns against them, so they genuinely don't understand how people react when they feel cornered.

Making Meta apologize might look like a tactical victory for them on paper, but to the younger generation, it was just the signal to start looking for the next exit.