Reading between the tweets

World leaders are conspicuous by their presence on Twitter, tweeting about everything but the job losses

Funding winter, search for profitability and an inevitable churn are among the explanations cited by observers and analysts while describing the current bloodbath in the Big Tech and the start-up world. While the celebrated collection of FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google), along with many others, are coping with the extraordinary situation, some things stand out.

Social media has been the go-to destination to make announcements on anything that’s of consequence for world leaders. These powerful voices have not been heard much on the drastic layoffs unleashed by large private enterprises run by the richest on earth. There’s no high profile exit either from these social media platforms to demonstrate their opposition to the large-scale sacking. While many marquee advertisers cutting across nations have moved away from the San Francisco-headquartered social media platform Twitter—acquired recently by Elon Musk for $44 billion—political leaders with a large number of followers have continued with their usual national and international discourse.

Typically, job protection is an issue close to the heart of most political leaders. They have resisted anything from shutting down a private plant to allowing foreign companies into some sectors from time to time, to protect jobs. In that context, the silence of the political class on Twitter on the issue of job cuts in the tech universe, including at the microblogging site, stands out.

On the day Mr Musk announced the job cut mayhem across geographies earlier this month, US President Joe Biden, with 27.3 million followers on Twitter, took to his handle on the same platform to speak about jobs and employment. “Back in June, we launched a nationwide Talent Pipeline Challenge to connect American workers to good-paying jobs rebuilding our infrastructure. I’m proud to announce more than 350 organisations across almost every state have committed to the challenge.” The following day when Twitter laid off half of its workforce, President Biden tweeted about America’s latest jobs report showing that the US had added 261,000 jobs and maintained a historically low employment rate of 3.7 per cent. “…. Our economy continues to grow and add jobs as gas prices come down.’’ At a fundraiser event, however, the US President had raised concerns over Mr Musk buying Twitter and lamented that there would be no editors anymore to edit the “lies’’.   

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has 1.6 million followers on Twitter, spoke last week about his priority to protect the most vulnerable, reiterating his earlier stand of helping households with £37 billion aid. Then at the G20 summit in Bali, Mr Sunak tweeted: “As we give the Ukrainian people the support they need, we are also harnessing the depth of UK expertise to protect ourselves and our allies. I am announcing a new generation of British frigates to bolster the UK’s defence and sustain 4,000 British jobs.’’

French President Emmanuel Macron, with 8.8 million followers on Twitter, has been busy talking about the geopolitical and economic scenario in the backdrop of the Ukraine war, the latest being from the G20 venue. Last week, while announcing the launch of the Children Online Protection Lab, he said: “We need to better protect our children on social networks and the Internet’’.

Among leaders in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with 84.3 million Twitter followers, has remained active on the platform. In the last two weeks, he has tweeted from across the country on economy and job creation to politics. Like others, he has been updating his Twitter handle on the G20 meetings with world leaders ever since he arrived in Bali. “In these challenging times, India is scaling new heights of progress. The eyes of the world are on India,’’ he tweeted recently.

Apart from lofty announcements by politicians, social media in recent years has also been the preferred medium for venting out anger and frustration on issues big and small for millions around the world. While most of them have moved on at a time when these platforms are experiencing turbulence, some protestors and unions have surfaced. Former Amazon employee Christian Smalls is one such. Based in Staten Island (New York), 33-year-old Smalls, who had to reportedly leave the company, has been the voice of aggrieved employees at Amazon. Just as the two pieces of news came in one after the other—that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos would give away most of his fortune to charity and that the Seattle-based e-commerce behemoth would cut around 10,000 jobs this week—Mr Smalls was all over social media urging tech workers to join a union and save their job!