4 ms·

A fraction of the population of the UK are on twitter, but it is used to drive media narratives. I'm skeptical, as it feels like the narratives are more to do

A fraction of the population of the UK are on twitter, but it is used to drive media narratives. I'm skeptical, as it feels like the narratives are more to do with they are cheap to write about, rather than meaningful journalism. For example, after black players missed penalties in the Euros, there was wall-to-wall coverage on the BBC about racist comments directed at the players on twitter, provoking discussion on how racist the UK was. Not until later, however, did people find that many of the tweets were sent from outside the UK. https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/15/majority-of-racist-abuse-targeting-england-players-from-outside-uk-14935080/ https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/15/majority-of-racist-abuse-targ...

Anthony-G 5y ago
That reminds me of a recent case where an Irish teenager had charges brought against him for using Twitter to send hateful racist messages to a former English footballer. The abuser (sensibly) pleaded guilty and avoided a criminal conviction. https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2021/0203/1194820-ian-wright/ https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2021/0203/1194820-ian-wright/ https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/03/ian-wright-disappointed-after-racial-abuser-escapes-criminal-conviction https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/03/ian-wright-... https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/ian-wright-says-outcome-of-kerry-racism-case-made-him-feel-helpless-1.4552515 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/ian-wright-say...
kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
Oh, wouldn’t it be great if reporters rarely/never wrote a story about ‘what someone said on Twitter’?
- rchaud 5y ago
  It would indeed be great if reporters were somehow immune to the pressure to constantly churn out stories to compete with the algorithm's recency bias, 24 hour news networks, pseudo-news outrage channels and the like.
  - smegger001 5y ago
    Maybe if we would limit the number of time a news outlet could publish to once or at most twice perday, then we could have all stories spell, grammar, and fact checked by a editor. Then all of the stories compiled and even printed. It would allow journalist to properly research and not be under to write something just so that they have it out minutes before the competition.
johnday 5y ago
> A fraction of the population of the UK are on twitter This is not a very useful statistic, given that it's always going to be true (0% and 100% would both be "a fraction of the population"). For some actual numbers, there look to be around 17 million Twitter users in the UK, or around a quarter of the population.
- heurisko 5y ago
  It's not a statistic, rather it's an idiom, meaning "a small part of". If US statistics are anything to go by, then it will be 10pc of those 17 million, sending 80pc of tweets, so the media is primarily focusing on what a very vocal 2.5pc are thinking. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...
  - ChrisRR 5y ago
    If the last year has taught us anything, it's that how many people 2% actually is

Anthony-G 5y ago

That reminds me of a recent case where an Irish teenager had charges brought against him for using Twitter to send hateful racist messages to a former English footballer. The abuser (sensibly) pleaded guilty and avoided a criminal conviction. https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2021/0203/1194820-ian-wright/ https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2021/0203/1194820-ian-wright/ https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/03/ian-wright-disappointed-after-racial-abuser-escapes-criminal-conviction https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/03/ian-wright-... https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/ian-wright-says-outcome-of-kerry-racism-case-made-him-feel-helpless-1.4552515 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/ian-wright-say...

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago

Oh, wouldn’t it be great if reporters rarely/never wrote a story about ‘what someone said on Twitter’?

rchaud 5y ago
It would indeed be great if reporters were somehow immune to the pressure to constantly churn out stories to compete with the algorithm's recency bias, 24 hour news networks, pseudo-news outrage channels and the like.
- smegger001 5y ago
  Maybe if we would limit the number of time a news outlet could publish to once or at most twice perday, then we could have all stories spell, grammar, and fact checked by a editor. Then all of the stories compiled and even printed. It would allow journalist to properly research and not be under to write something just so that they have it out minutes before the competition.

johnday 5y ago

> A fraction of the population of the UK are on twitter This is not a very useful statistic, given that it's always going to be true (0% and 100% would both be "a fraction of the population"). For some actual numbers, there look to be around 17 million Twitter users in the UK, or around a quarter of the population.

heurisko 5y ago
It's not a statistic, rather it's an idiom, meaning "a small part of". If US statistics are anything to go by, then it will be 10pc of those 17 million, sending 80pc of tweets, so the media is primarily focusing on what a very vocal 2.5pc are thinking. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/04/24/sizing-up-tw...
- ChrisRR 5y ago
  If the last year has taught us anything, it's that how many people 2% actually is