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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 4:29:04 pm

Algorithmic Anarchy

The NEET paper leak protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar should have remained a legitimate expression of student anger over the collapse of examination integrity. Instead, as the agitation escalated into clashes with the police, abusive sloganeering and an increasingly radical political campaign, Meta’s algorithms emerged as an invisible force multiplying the unrest. The controversy surrounding the brief removal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message to the youth in the aftermath of the...

Algorithmic Anarchy

The NEET paper leak protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar should have remained a legitimate expression of student anger over the collapse of examination integrity. Instead, as the agitation escalated into clashes with the police, abusive sloganeering and an increasingly radical political campaign, Meta’s algorithms emerged as an invisible force multiplying the unrest. The controversy surrounding the brief removal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s message to the youth in the aftermath of the protests only reinforces that concern. Meta has attributed the takedown to a “technical glitch” and apologised. But when the world’s largest social media platform can temporarily suppress the message of the elected leader of the world’s largest democracy during a politically charged moments, the issue extends well beyond a single deleted post. Who decides what India sees? That question has become impossible to ignore during the Cockroach Janta Party’s protests. Across Instagram and Facebook, users have reported being inundated with CJP videos, reels and protest clips despite never following the organisation or engaging with similar political content. Whether this resulted from coordinated paid collaborations, recommendation algorithms or both deserves a thorough investigation. But the larger democratic concern is that public opinion is increasingly being mediated not by citizens, journalists or elected representatives, but by opaque algorithms designed in Silicon Valley and optimised for engagement rather than democratic responsibility. Meta’s recommendation engine is not a passive notice board. Every piece of political content that reaches millions has first been selected by an algorithm whose workings remain largely hidden from public scrutiny. This is hardly unique to India. Around the world, Meta has repeatedly been accused of amplifying polarisation, misinformation and political extremism because outrage keeps users engaged. From elections to ethnic conflicts and episodes of civil unrest, the company has faced persistent criticism that its commercial incentives reward divisive content over balanced discourse. Democracies cannot afford to outsource the architecture of public debate to corporations whose primary obligation is to shareholders rather than constitutional values. While citizens are entitled to challenge governments and demand accountability, there is an important distinction between a movement that expands because people are persuaded and one that appears to be algorithmically amplified into omnipresence. Equally disturbing has been the normalisation of abusive political language during the protests. When such content is repeatedly amplified through recommendation systems, platforms cease to be neutral intermediaries and become active participants in degrading democratic discourse. Platforms that influence elections, protests and public opinion must explain how political recommendations are generated and why particular narratives receive extraordinary amplification. Silicon Valley companies insist they are merely technology platforms. But their algorithms increasingly exercise editorial power. When software determines which protests dominate national conversations and whose voices disappear, technology has already become politics.

When the Ashes Became a Two-Day TikTok Reel

Ah, the Ashes. That venerable old urn, stuffed with more history than a dusty attic, where England and Australia pretend to hate each other over five days of polite savagery. But spare a thought for the first Test in Perth, November 21-22, 2025. What was billed as a grand reopening of the rivalry turned into a slapstick comedy of errors, wrapped up in under 48 hours. Eight wickets to Australia, they say. Eight hours of therapy for England, more like. Welcome to the debacle where cricket forgot how to bat and remembered how to audition for a clown car.


Day One dawned bright and bouncy at Optus Stadium, that gleaming bowl of Australian optimism where the sun kisses the pitch like a long-lost lover. England, under the eternal optimism of Ben Stokes—bless his all-rounder heart—won the toss and batted. What could go wrong? Well, everything, darling. Mitchell Starc, that lanky left-arm wizard who swings the ball like he’s conducting an orchestra of regret, opened the attack and had Zak Crawley caught behind for a golden duck. Zero. Zilch. The first ball of the Ashes, and England’s top-order poster boy was back in the hutch quicker than you can say “Bazball overreach.”


Cue the collapse. Ollie Pope, ever the eager beaver, danced down the track to Pat Cummins like he was auditioning for Strictly Come Dancing and middled a dolly to mid-on. Joe Root, the thinking man’s cricketer, thought even less and edged one to slip. Harry Brook? Oh, he just swished at fresh air like a man fighting off invisible bees. England slithered to 172 all out, a total so limp it needed a lie-down. Nineteen wickets fell that day—yes, nineteen—in a frenzy that made the pitch look less like turf and more like a trampoline from hell. Stokes, to his credit, snagged five, including a hooping yorker to Cameron Green that left the big lad’s stumps looking like they’d been mugged. But even Stokes couldn’t bowl Australia out entirely; they limped to 9-123, trailing by 49. Usman Khawaja, bless his dodgy back, kept popping on and off the field like a whack-a-mole reject, disrupting the batting order more than England’s seamers. At stumps, with Jofra Archer lurking unused like a loaded gun in a pacifist’s holster, you half-expected the umpires to call it a draw and hand out participation trophies.


But oh, Day Two. Where Day One was chaotic, Day Two was carnage with a side of humiliation. Australia needed one more wicket in the morning, and England obliged by folding their second innings like a cheap lawn chair. Starc, on a hat-trick mission from the gods of schadenfreude, cleaned up the tail with 3-55 to his name, finishing with match figures of 7-58. England’s 164 set Australia 205 to win—a chase that, in Perth’s seaming cauldron, should have been a nail-biter. Instead, it became Travis Head’s personal fireworks display.


Head, that grinning South Australian tornado with a bat for a Excalibur, strode in at 1-20 after David Warner’s spiritual successor nicked off early. What followed was 123 off 83 balls, a knock so brutal it registered on the Richter scale. Sixes flew like confetti at a divorce party—cover drives that pierced gaps tighter than a Scotsman’s wallet, pulls that treated short balls like unwelcome suitors. By the time he holed out to deep midwicket, Australia were 205/2 in 28.2 overs, romping home at 7.2 an over. Steve Smith, captaining in Pat Cummins’s absence like a fidgety substitute teacher, sauntered in to finish the job with the cool of a man returning library books. Perth Stadium erupted; England fans, scattered like confetti themselves, plotted their escape to Brisbane.


Sarcasm aside—and let’s face it, it’s hard when your “attacking cricket” looks like a suicide pact— this was Bazball’s Waterloo in widescreen. England didn’t just lose; they donated the game with a bow that said, “Here, have our dignity too.” Scott Boland, that unassuming Victorian with a knack for debuting spectacularly, snared Ben Duckett at slip like he was gift-wrapping Christmas. And Crawley’s pair? The first English opener to bag one this century. Historic, if by “historic” you mean “tragically meme-worthy.”


Australia, for their part, weren’t blameless. Their first innings was a procession of soft dismissals—Stokes dismissing Marnus Labuschagne with a bouncer that said, “Think fast, mate”—but they recovered with the sheer audacity of home-soil entitlement. Starc’s 10-wicket haul earned him Player of the Match, a stat line that reads like a fever dream. Head’s ton? “Of all the bad things in 2025,” quipped one pundit, “this innings ranks in the top 10.” For England fans, try top 1.


In the end, this two-day farce— the shortest Ashes Test since 1921—left more questions than the urn has ashes. Will Stokes tweak his Bazball blueprint, or double down into delusion? Can Australia stabilize without Cummins, or was this just Perth’s pitch playing cruel tricks? One thing’s certain: the rivalry’s alive, if a bit punch-drunk. As Head jogged off in his training gear—yes, training gear—for the handshakes, you couldn’t help but chuckle. Cricket’s greatest soap opera, and Episode One was pure Benny Hill. Roll on Brisbane; England might need a week just to unpack the therapy bills.


(The writer is a senior journalist based in Mumbai. Views personal.)

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