
Twitter has become the signifier of not only one’s popularity, but also of the weight one’s voice carries. According to Twitter’s annual year-end review, the incumbent US President Donald Trump and the President-elect Joe Biden are the most talked about people in 2020.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too made it to the top 10. Coming in at #7, it means that Modi was the seventh most tweeted about person in 2020.
Both Trump and Biden have been embroiled in a never-ending spat, for Trump still refuses to concede, breaking from American tradition. In fact, Trump has made unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, many of which have been rejected by provincial courts.
Many other familiar faces were spotted on the list, including US Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, who was the only woman on the list, and took the #10 spot globally.
Also read:#ThisHappened2020: Modi features in top 10 Twitter mentions; Kohli and Dhoni top trending charts
"People continued to utilize Twitter to publicly advocate for political change and demand accountability from world leaders this year. Over 700 million Tweets were sent in 2020 about elections around the world and Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Narendra Modi and Kamala Harris were among the most Tweeted-about global figures," a blog post by Twitter read.
Naturally, the most used hashtag in 2020 was #COVID19. As of now, over 68 million people around the world remain infected with COVID-19, and 1.55 million people have died so far.
Vaccines are now being rolled out at a quick pace across the globe. The United Kingdom became the first country to administer Pfizer’s vaccine, while Russia has also begun mass inoculation with its vaccine - the Sputnik V. India too hopes to begin vaccination by next year.
Meanwhile, many fear that western countries are hoarding vaccines, which may deprive developing countries of access, making global inoculation rather impossible in the next two years.