Besides offering ludicrous justifications and flimsy arguments to defend the opposition parties, propaganda outlet AltNews meticulously tries to discredit everyone who speaks in favour of India and the Modi government. Recently, the founder of propaganda outlet AltNews, Pratik Sinha, took to Twitter to belittle an expert who hailed India as the biggest rising power despite the COVID-19 crisis and called India’s power structure as stable and Modi government secure.
In an article published in the Arab News, American foreign policy expert Dr John Hulsman argued that despite the raging COVID-19 crisis, India remains the greatest rising country on the planet and has inherent virtues that would help her in becoming the “most powerful” countries in the world. Hulsman also noted that the Modi government is politically secure in a way that other “developing countries can only envy”.
Naturally, praise for the country and the Indian government did not sit well with the AltNews co-founder, who was quick to dismiss the foreign policy expert’s opinions by casting doubts on his credibility. Raising aspersions on the credentials of the author, Sinha tweeted that the American foreign policy expert had only 160 followers on Twitter.
Social media following is hardly a touchstone of measuring one’s credibility and authenticity. Countless personalities continue to excel in their respective fields even if they have no active presence on social media. Some do have dormant accounts on social media platforms with less following because they are largely inactive. Just because someone is not famous on social media or does not command a huge following on Twitter is not a good enough reason to insinuate that they lack credibility.
There are some self-proclaimed fact-checkers with dubious credentials, operating a so-called neutral ‘fact-checking’ website that colludes with political parties to give them clean chits, and who have an outsize sizeable Twitter following, even though their lies have been busted on more occasions than one. Their Twitter following is in no way a mark of their credibility.
In short, the follower count on Twitter has no bearing on a person’s credibility in his/her field of work. Even people with shallow morals and no credibility have a large following on social media websites.
As such, there is a life beyond Twitter and social media websites, and some folks may not be interested in engaging with people on social media.
Dr John Hulsman’s professional accomplishments
While Sinha raises questions on the credibility of the expert who praised the Indian government, it must be noted that Dr Hulsman is an esteemed foreign policy expert and the president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a prominent global political risk consulting firm.
Hulsman was the Alfred von Oppenheim Scholar in Residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. He is also a senior columnist for the City AM, the newspaper of the city of London. Hulsman also contributes research papers to the Aspen Institute of Italy and is a senior research fellow at the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies.
In the past, Hulsman used to write for the Heritage Foundation, besides being a senior research fellow in international relations there. He also taught European security studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and world politics and U.S. foreign policy at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
Furthermore, Hulsman also authored 3 books—Ethical Realism, The Godfather Doctrine, and a biography of Lawrence of Arabia titled To Begin the World Over Again.
