The landslide victory of the Narendra Modi-led NDA has stunned and silenced critics and the Opposition alike. The silence is palpable on social media as well. For several months leading up to and during the Lok Sabha elections, hundreds of fan pages of the BJP and Opposition parties were roaring with political propaganda and fake news.

SILENCE OF THE BIG GUNS

After the humiliating drubbing, Congress social media head Divya Spandana, known for her caustic remarks against Modi, deleted her twitter handle.

On May 16, Spandana called Modi a serial liar on Facebook. Her next and latest post visible on the social media page as of May 29. It is a non-political one a blurry image of her own, with the caption, The delusion that you could hold on! There are no Facebook posts after that till the time of writing this article.

This is not an isolated incident. Several other Facebook pages known for their hardcore anti-Modi posts and false propaganda have recently deleted their old posts.

"Viral in India", "Zee News ko bandh karo", "Prasoon Vajpaaye Fans" and "I Support Ravish Kumar" are some Facebook pages with a huge following that have deleted several political posts.

These pages are followed regularly by 3-19 lakh users. During elections, these pages were hyperactive, flooded with posts of political propaganda and many of them were fake. Fact checkershad busted many such viral posts from these pages. But currently all of them are deleted.

FB page Viral in India was connected to a website called Viralindia.net which has now suspended its operation after the Congress debacle in the elections. The archived version of some of its stories can be seen here.

Two other most hyperactive anti-Modi pages during elections, Prasoon Vajpaaye Fans and I Support Ravish Kumar, have also fallen silent. Both have deleted their old posts. A Crowdtangle analysis of their Facebook interactions shows that they have deleted all their post since last year. A couple of posts have appeared recently supporting the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

On the other hand, it is business as usual for Facebook pages that support Narendra Modi and BJP. But there is less activity these days post the election results in Facebook pages such as "NAMO".

On May 18, just a day before the last phase of elections, interactivities on NAMO rose to nearly 4 lakh five times higher than its average daily interaction of around 78,000. On the day of the counting of votes on May 23, the interaction on the FB page was as high as 1.56 lakh. Later on, the rate of interactions and number of posts started decreasing.

Most pro-BJP Facebook pages like "ModiNama" or "I Support Narendra Modi" are either carrying on with their rant against arch-rivals Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Bannerjee or are busy in trumpeting achievements’ of the Modi government.

With the decrease in the number of posts following the huge Modi victory, fake news and false propaganda have also seen a sharp drop. Right-wing Facebook pages are more filled with eulogies for the new ministers.

Tough get going

But not all anti- Modi pages have fall silent. While some social media platforms supporting the opposition have become victims of collateral damage, some still try to stick their necks out in the storm.

Many Facebook pages like "I Support Abhisar Sharma" and "FekuExpress" are persistent in their attack on Modi sarkar.

The 2019 Lok Sabha elections were fought as hard on ballots and EVMs as on social media. Naturally, social media users of these political parties were also impacted hugely after the election results. The temporary lull on the opposition front on social media might not be an exception.