Published 18:06 IST, December 21st 2019
Anurag Kashyap claims Twitter 'reduced' his followers, Chandan Roy Sanyal too doubtful
Anurag Kashyap claimed Twitter 'drastically reduced' his followers. Kaminey star Chandan Roy Sanyal said Twitter was 'unfollowing' when he tried to follow him.
Anurag Kashyap’s love-hate relationship with Twitter is well-known. The filmmaker had in August quit the microblogging platform to protest against the threats he received for speaking against the government, but also rejoined the medium to voice his views against the government introducing the Citizenship Amendment Bill. The Gangs of Wasseypur director now claims that Twitter has ‘drastically reduced’ his number of followers. Kaminey actor Chandan Roy Sanyal claimed that Twitter was taking Anurag Kashyap ‘off his list’ when he tried to follow the filmmaker.
Taking to Twitter on Saturday, Anurag Kashyap shared a screenshot of his number of followers that read as 76.3K followers at 2.30 PM. He wrote, “And @TwitterIndia has drastically reduced my followers ..” By the time of publishing this story, the number had shot up to 84.6 K followers. Though Republic TV couldn’t figure out his number of followers in recent days to gauge the drop, it can be informed that in October 2018, the filmmaker had 387K followers.
Here’s the post
Meanwhile, Chandan Roy Sanyal expressed his surprise to realise on Saturday that he was not following Anurag Kashyap. He seemed to suggest that twice, he tried to follow him, but he was being 'unfollowed.' “oh i just saw i have unfollowed him. or twitter took me off his list,”(sic) read his first tweet. In his second tweet, he said, “added @anuragkashyap72 sahab again! Twitter unfollowed me.” Saqib Saleem also reacted to it, 'Twitter par jhol' after a user said that he had never unfollowed Anurag Kashyap.
In August, when Anurag Kashyap had quit Twitter, he had tweeted,"When your parents start to get calls and your daughter gets online threats you know that no one wants to talk.There isn’t going to be reason or rationale. Thugs will rule and thuggery will be the new way of life. Congratulations everyone on this new india & hope you all thrive." In another tweet, he wrote, "Wish you all the happiness and success. This would be my last tweet as i leave twitter. When i won't be allowed to speak my mind without fear then i would rather not speak at all. Goodbye."
He was, however, active on Instagram. When he rejoined on December 16 to protest against the introduction of the CAA, he wrote, “This has gone too far.. can’t stay silent any longer . This government is clearly fascist .. and it makes me angry to see voices that can actually make a difference stay quiet ..”
This is not the first time that a celebrity has expressed displeasure over the reduction in number of Twitter followers. Amitabh Bachchan had almost gone on a tirade against the company for it. He had tweeted multiple times to Twitter in mid-2018.
Updated 18:21 IST, December 21st 2019