tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/tweets-23820/articlesTweets – The Conversation2023-08-01T21:38:53Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2106072023-08-01T21:38:53Z2023-08-01T21:38:53ZThe reaction to ‘X,’ Elon Musk’s rebrand of Twitter, reflects how we feel about brands<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540257/original/file-20230731-248378-gey506.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3598%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Elon Musk, owner of X Holdings Corp., changed Twitter, Inc. to X Corp. He announced the change on July 23, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-reaction-to-x-elon-musks-rebrand-of-twitter-reflects-how-we-feel-about-brands" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Twitter has long been known for its iconic Blue Bird. On July 23, Elon Musk <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-27/why-rebrand-twitter-x-elon-musk-s-everything-app-explained-quicktake">announced that this famed logo was going to be replaced with an “X.”</a> After a series of Musk-driven blunders, the disappearance of the Blue Bird has been seen by some as the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2022/11/22/23466381/leaving-twitter-x-saying-goodbye-social-media">final straw in the erasure of Twitter</a> as we know it. </p>
<p>It also serves as a reminder that, despite the meaningful role many logos play in our cultural life, there is someone behind the curtain, pulling the strings.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/twitter-musk-x-rebrand/674818/">Among the speculation as to why Musk has decided to rebrand Twitter</a>, one thing is certain: the Blue Bird is gone. As this iconic logo disappears from public life — along with “<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tweet">tweets</a>” and the Twitter name itself — some are left <a href="https://www.insider.com/twitter-blue-bird-logo-x-elon-musk-replaced-mockery-memes-2023-7">mourning the loss of a brand</a> that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Twitter">impacted the online social fabric for over a decade</a>.</p>
<h2>Evolving relationships</h2>
<p>The ways in which <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814787144/authentic/">consumers relate to brands is evolving</a>. Brands not only advertise on Instagram and TikTok, but they also have their own profiles. Brands digitally appear alongside friends, colleagues and politicians. We can text brands for customer service help on WhatsApp alongside family chat groups. </p>
<p>We now interact with brands in an emotional and relational way. This is part of a larger trend of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2020.02.007">brands becoming anthropomorphized</a>.</p>
<p>Consumers relate to brands in ways that exceed the bounds of an economic, transactional relationship. Brands arouse emotions in us. Nostalgia is now the <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/zellers-nostalgia/">driving force behind reviving former brands — as the recent revival of Canadian discount brand Zellers is proving</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540494/original/file-20230801-28-9l0og9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="storefront with the Zellers logo" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540494/original/file-20230801-28-9l0og9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/540494/original/file-20230801-28-9l0og9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540494/original/file-20230801-28-9l0og9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540494/original/file-20230801-28-9l0og9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540494/original/file-20230801-28-9l0og9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540494/original/file-20230801-28-9l0og9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/540494/original/file-20230801-28-9l0og9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The revival of the Canadian discount brand Zellers reflects consumers’ pull towards nostalgia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<h2>Emotional connections</h2>
<p>Our emotions are <a href="https://hbr.org/2015/11/the-new-science-of-customer-emotions">being leveraged by companies in deliberate and explicit ways</a>. As consumers we understand the social capital and value of branding. </p>
<p>To mourn the loss of a logo and brand is noteworthy. Despite any feelings we have about Twitter’s former brand, this disappearance reminds us that a brand’s use — and existence — is ultimately outside our control. </p>
<p>This is not to say our collective thoughts and feelings about logos do not matter at all. In fact, public pressure has been the driver in some companies rebranding and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2022/08/31/when-the-external-environment-demands-you-rebrand/?sh=43bf5ed35212">evolving their logos</a>, particularly <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racial-justice/2020/09/23/916012582/uncle-bens-changing-name-to-ben-s-original-after-criticism-of-racial-stereotypin#:%7E:text=a%20store%20shelf.-,Mars%2C%20Incorporated%20announced%20on%20Wednesday%20that%20it%20is%20changing%20the,the%20brand%20to%20Ben's%20Original.&text=Uncle%20Ben's%20will%20now%20be,faced%20criticism%20for%20racial%20stereotyping.">racist ones</a>. </p>
<h2>Controlled trademarks</h2>
<p>Logos are trademarks, and as such, they are objects of private property, controlled and owned by corporations as assets. Although trademarks are the perceptible form of a brand, logos only have value because we, as consumers, recognize them. We rely on trademarks in the market to decide what to buy, and what brands to trust. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-some-brands-change-racist-names-and-logos-but-others-dont-heres-what-the-research-says-197605">Why do some brands change racist names and logos, but others don't? Here's what the research says</a>
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<p>In our reliance on brands, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/319618">in forming communities around them</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107300880.004">we contribute to their value</a>. Yet, in many ways, in the trademark law landscape, we are tourists.</p>
<p>Trademarks constitute an essential aspect of a brand, and the value of today’s leading brands is in the billions. For example, Canadian brands <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/795319/leading-brands-canada-brand-value/">Bell and TD Bank are worth $11.05 billion and $27.54 billion respectively</a>. These astronomical values pale in comparison to the value of global brands; Amazon’s brand in 2022 was worth <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/326086/amazon-brand-value/">US$705.65 billion</a>.</p>
<h2>Brands as properties</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that trademarks, as the face of brands, are precious to their owners. They are also meaningful to members of the public in various ways, sometimes forming the face of <a href="https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2018/05/198398/womens-march-trademark-dispute-movement">social movements</a> or <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/06/how-subarus-came-to-be-seen-as-cars-for-lesbians/488042/">reflecting our identities</a>, but ways in which we can make use of trademarks is limited. </p>
<p>Using someone else’s trademark without their permission infringes their rights to their logo. While there are exceptions to this protection, they are narrow.</p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://canlii.ca/t/h4jzk">parody and satire are not defences to trademark infringement in Canadian law</a>. Using a company’s logo for cultural criticism and political protest may violate the trademark owner’s rights. </p>
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<p>This gives companies legal means to threaten those using their logo in the course of protest or critique — such as <a href="https://thehill.com/lobbying/3687141-medieval-times-sues-its-worker-union-saying-name-violates-its-trademark/">employees looking to organize a union</a> or <a href="https://www.thestar.com/business/personal-finance/united-airlines-fights-legal-battle-with-untied-website/article_ff9d941c-ec4a-583a-902a-b755ba3ddb38.html">unhappy customers who create a “gripe site</a>.”</p>
<p>There are many reasons for this, but a common thread that permeates Canadian law is <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2419289">understanding trademarks as a form of private property</a>. Just as protesting on someone’s front lawn would be trespassing, protesting with a logo is infringement. </p>
<p>Protecting logos in this way fails to appreciate the social roles they have, and the roles consumers play in developing their meaning.</p>
<h2>Collective meanings</h2>
<p>Logos are not merely commercial assets. They have value that extends far beyond their owners. Logos are a collective site of meaning and protecting them as mere commercial assets may effectively <a href="https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/all_papers/356/">shield trademark owners from public discourse</a>. </p>
<p>As we say goodbye to one of the most iconic logos of the last decade, it is worth pausing to ask what exactly we have lost. As consumers, we sit on the sidelines of trademark protection. As Twitter — erm, X — changes, for better or worse, perhaps it is time our trademark laws change as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210607/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexandra Mogyoros receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council through a SSHRC Explore Grant.</span></em></p>Consumers relate to brands and logos on an emotional level. The response to Elon Musk’s rebranding of Twitter has revealed the emotional connections people have to the brands they use.Alexandra Mogyoros, Assistant Professor in law researching at the intersection of brands, trust, intellectual property and expression, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1945962022-11-22T18:26:20Z2022-11-22T18:26:20ZElon Musk’s buyout of Twitter has placed its user-generated archives in danger<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495989/original/file-20221117-21-xsf9nd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C80%2C4500%2C2910&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Since its founding in 2006, Twitter has become one of the largest digital datasets of a record of human history.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Twitter is in disarray. This is troubling for a platform that comprises no small part of the historical record of today. </p>
<p>While only used by a percentage of Americans (<a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/05/05/10-facts-about-americans-and-twitter/">some 23 per cent in 2022</a>) and Canadians (<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/388-pokemon-go-for-ecologists-fake-videos-and-more-1.4569277/how-does-your-social-media-use-stack-up-against-other-canadians-1.4569280">42 per cent of adults in 2018</a>), it has outsized value for sharing information, capturing ongoing events and shaping the cultural conversation. </p>
<p>Twitter’s role cannot be underemphasized. In advance of the 2022 American midterm elections, Twitter realized its pivotal role in shaping electoral information meant that its plan to verify anybody who paid US$8 could “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/06/technology/twitter-verification-check-marks.html">sow discord</a>.” </p>
<p>Similarly, Twitter is where many turned to information during the opening weeks of the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2022/01/04/the-vital-role-of-twitter-in-responding-to-covid/">COVID-19 pandemic</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/guns-tanks-and-twitter-how-russia-and-ukraine-are-using-social-media-as-the-war-drags-on-180131">Ukraine war</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496486/original/file-20221121-23-er6qlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="neon sign in red reading #TWEET TWEET, installed on top of green patterned wallpaper" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496486/original/file-20221121-23-er6qlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496486/original/file-20221121-23-er6qlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496486/original/file-20221121-23-er6qlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496486/original/file-20221121-23-er6qlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496486/original/file-20221121-23-er6qlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496486/original/file-20221121-23-er6qlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496486/original/file-20221121-23-er6qlp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Twitter has become an important site for information (and disinformation).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash/Chris J. Davis)</span></span>
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<h2>The end of Twitter?</h2>
<p>Amidst predictions <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1136205315/musk-twitter-bankruptcy-how-likely">of bankruptcy</a> or even wholesale <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/08/1062886/heres-how-a-twitter-engineer-says-it-will-break-in-the-coming-weeks/">technical collapse</a>, the cultural record of all of these critical moments are <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/11/1063162/twitters-imminent-collapse-could-wipe-out-vast-records-of-recent-human-history/">now endangered</a>.</p>
<p>This is terrible because the <a href="https://theconversation.com/historians-archival-research-looks-quite-different-in-the-digital-age-121096">information that our society creates today is tomorrow’s historical record</a>. For better or worse, Twitter has been with us throughout the last decade and a half: <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/us-elections">election cycles</a>, the COVID-19 pandemic (where it has been an exemplar platform for <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5">misinformation</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98396-9">information</a> alike), and online culture more generally (some tweets have even <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1612578/">become TV shows</a>). </p>
<p>Future historians may be able to learn about these things through media coverage of Twitter, but the ability to access the tweets themselves will be invaluable for historical research. This is doubly true for the spread of information during breaking events, when the platform itself became the main primary source for observers and participants.</p>
<p>Given the centrality of this source, it is hard to believe that it could all disappear. Could it?</p>
<h2>Unique vulnerability</h2>
<p>Twitter archives take several shapes and sizes. For a time, the most famous one was the Library of Congress’s Twitter archive. In 2010, the Library of Congress announced that it would both receive all the text of tweets dating back to 2006 and acquire them going forward. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"12178991018"}"></div></p>
<p><a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2017/12/update-on-the-twitter-archive-at-the-library-of-congress-2/">Then in December 2017</a>, the Library of Congress moved from a collect <em>everything</em> approach to a “selective basis,” curating rather <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/27/technology/library-congress-tweets.html">than taking everything</a>.</p>
<p>The Internet Archive, a digital library based in the United States, also collects many Twitter streams, both through its <a href="https://archive.org/web/">Wayback Machine</a> and its subscription service <a href="https://archive-it.org">Archive-It</a>, where members can choose and curate the accounts that they collect. </p>
<p>Users can go back and look at the suspended (and since reinstated) <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20161109000022/https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump account</a>, for example. These web archives, however, are targeted: one needs to know the username or particular hashtag that one wants to study.</p>
<p>The Internet Archive’s holdings are not at risk, but they are very hard to search and slow to use. To truly unlock the power of Twitter research, more access is required. </p>
<h2>At-risk datasets</h2>
<p>Fortunately — for now — there is a better way: the <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-api">Twitter Application Programming Interface</a> (API). APIs are ways for computer programs to speak to each other. The <a href="https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api/academic-research">Twitter API for Academic Research</a> program allowed researchers to apply for accounts and then design or use programs to create their own collections of both real-time or historical data. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://catalog.docnow.io">DocNow Catalog</a>, has a subset of these Twitter collections, and currently has some 142 datasets consisting of over six <em>billion</em> tweets, on topics ranging from <a href="https://catalog.docnow.io/datasets/20201020-twitter-corpus-of-the-blacklivesmatter-movement-and-counter-protests-2013-to-2020/">#BlackLivesMatter</a> (41 million tweets) to the <a href="https://catalog.docnow.io/datasets/20190222-2018-us-congressional-election/">2018 American Congressional Election</a> (171 million tweets).</p>
<p>However, to use the API, one needs to agree to the <a href="https://developer.twitter.com/en/developer-terms/agreement-and-policy">terms of service</a>. Each tweet has its own unique number. This means that these datasets do not contain the data, rather they just contain the numbers that are required to <em>get</em> the data. In other words, think of it as a library where you could only share the call numbers with other patrons, not the books themselves.</p>
<p>When the API is functional, this makes sense. Every time a search request is made, a dataset is generated. This means that the same search conducted at different moments in time would produce a different dataset. If somebody had deleted their tweet in the meantime, it would not be available for download. </p>
<p>For example, if in 2020 I had tweeted something which was recorded by a researcher but in 2021 decided to delete it, if the dataset was requested in 2022, my tweet would no longer be there. </p>
<p>But if Twitter disappears — or if the API collapses — this data could suddenly become lost. If Twitter was to completely disappear, perhaps scholars could share their original, full datasets. But some of this data may have already been deleted, perhaps due to researchers running out of storage space or facing other institutional or ethical requirements. </p>
<p>We truly are facing the prospect of widespread erasure.</p>
<h2>An incalculable loss</h2>
<p>The loss of Twitter’s 16 years of user-generated content would be a tragedy.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/2020-is-a-year-for-the-history-books-but-not-without-digital-archives-140234">2020 is a year for the history books, but not without digital archives</a>
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<p>Digital platforms like Twitter are the public town squares of today, unlike more private social media platforms like Facebook. We all have a stake in ensuring its material is preserved: governments, archivists, librarians, historians, activists, among other institutional and private stakeholders.</p>
<p>Without the Twitter archive, we risk losing important voices from the past. Many of us have experienced elections, protest and the pandemic through <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/twitters-doubling-of-character-count-from-140-to-280-had-little-impact-on-length-of-tweets/">280-character tweets</a>. Without these voices, we lose the unique flavour of the tumultuous times we have lived through.</p>
<p>And the next time a platform comes along, it is important for developers to consider how to archive its content for future consideration. </p>
<p>In the meantime, we can <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-download-your-twitter-archive">download our own Twitter archives</a>. <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23453703/twitter-archive-download-how-to-tweets">Several instructional guides have appeared</a> <a href="https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/dont-delete-twitter-before-you-download-all-your-tweets-and-messages/">walking users through the process</a> of <a href="https://mashable.com/article/how-to-leave-twitter-guide-elon-musk">downloading this data and making it usable</a>.</p>
<p>While lacking the preservation power of the Library of Congress, perhaps these digital scrapbooks will one day remind us of the Twitter that was.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/social-media-and-society-125586" target="_blank"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479539/original/file-20220817-20-g5jxhm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=1" width="100%"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Milligan receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. </span></em></p>Over the past 16 years, Twitter has amassed an incredible amount of user-generated data which contains a detailed and extensive record of cultural moments. Musk’s takeover threatens these archives.Ian Milligan, Professor of History, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1878792022-08-23T13:18:32Z2022-08-23T13:18:32ZOnline fraudsters, colonial legacies and the north-south divide in Nigeria<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480595/original/file-20220823-5537-o24mux.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">JARIRIYAWAT/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Millions of people with email accounts have undoubtedly encountered fraudulent emails that originate from Nigeria. <a href="https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2022/Nigerian-cybercrime-fraud-11-suspects-arrested-syndicate-busted">Online fraudsters</a> from the huge west African nation are also known as Yahoo Boys. </p>
<p>According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation analysed in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlcj.2016.07.002">academic research</a>, they have defrauded millions of victims worldwide. </p>
<p>Statistics about the actual value of Yahoo Boys’ scams do not exist. But the wider cost of scams in general in the UK alone has been <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58926333">estimated at £9.3 billion</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.04.009">Educated Yahoo Boys</a> relied primarily relied on information technological expertise to defraud victims. The value of their scams are much greater than that of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.04.009">uneducated Yahoo Boys</a> who primarily <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10030146">relied on supernatural powers</a> to manipulate victims.</p>
<p>Academic research about Yahoo Boys seems to be gaining traction. But relatively little is known about them. What is clear though, is that they need efficient banking and technological facilities to run their scamming industries.</p>
<p>Consequently, those who live in Nigeria generally live in urban areas where they have established <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.04.009">networks and collaborators</a>. Yahoo Boys are <a href="https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/article/3792">predominantly</a> men and boys. Some of them are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.04.009">graduates, students and dropouts</a> from tertiary institutions. </p>
<p>In our <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">recent research</a>, we sought to find out how the fraudsters’ ethnic origin and geographical location influenced their prosecution by Nigeria’s <a href="https://www.efcc.gov.ng/">Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)</a>. </p>
<p>We <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">studied how Twitter users responded to the commission’s tweets</a> about the arrest and prosecution of cybercrime suspects.</p>
<p>We argue that the tweets underscored the north-south divide in present-day Nigeria.
And that inequalities concerning the arrest and prosecution of cybercrime suspects reflect long-standing disparities in Nigerian society. </p>
<p>Twitter users’ responses <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">suggest</a> that southerners are significantly more criminalised because the crimes commission is doing selective enforcement of rules.</p>
<h2>The crimes commission</h2>
<p>The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is an agency established by the Nigerian government in 2002 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.04.009">to address various kinds of economic crimes</a> and to repair Nigeria’s image. Its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.04.009">primary aim</a> is to stop fraud and corruption – not only by cyber criminals but by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCCF.2016.7740439">public officials</a> too. </p>
<p>The commission generally tweets about its accomplishments in tackling economic crimes. Examples of such tweets include: (a) Two Internet Fraudsters Jailed in Ilorin; (b) Court Jails Fifteen Fraudsters in Enugu; (c) EFCC Arrests Nine Yahoo Boys in Port Harcourt.</p>
<p>We analysed over 100,000 Twitter users’ responses to the tweets. The comments were generally about whether the arrests and prosecutions were fair. We wanted to see what this revealed about the long-standing disparities between the northern and southern regions of Nigeria. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">Based on the evidence that came to light on Twitter</a>, arrests and prosecutions of Yahoo Boys from Nigeria’s southern region (like Lagos, Oyo, Edo, Delta, Anambra and Enugu states) differ substantially from northern region (like Katsina, Jigawa, Yobe, Kano, Borno and Zamfara states). </p>
<p>We deduced this by examining Twitter users’ responses to the tweets by the commission concerning online fraudsters who were arrested and prosecuted from 2019 to 2020 – over a period of 17 months.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478691/original/file-20220811-12-u7ceg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478691/original/file-20220811-12-u7ceg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478691/original/file-20220811-12-u7ceg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478691/original/file-20220811-12-u7ceg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478691/original/file-20220811-12-u7ceg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478691/original/file-20220811-12-u7ceg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478691/original/file-20220811-12-u7ceg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/478691/original/file-20220811-12-u7ceg0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some examples of twe ofets about the north-south divide.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The factors responsible</h2>
<p>We <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">argue</a> that a number of factors are responsible for the contemporary manifestation of discrepancies between Nigeria’s northern and southern regions when it comes to cyber fraudsters’ arrest, conviction, and sentencing. </p>
<p>First, we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">argue</a> that fraudsters from northern Nigeria deploy a peculiar modus operandi that does not often come to the attention of the crimes commission and other crime agencies. One is the “hit-and-run method” involving nomadic scammers from northern Nigeria. These fraudulent syndicates usually launch a coordinated attack on an identified viable victim involving <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10030146">spiritual manipulation</a>. </p>
<p>The team travels to the victim’s country, befriends them, defrauds the victim face-to-face, and leaves the country with the money without a direct digital trace to its home nation. </p>
<p>We posit that it’s reasonable to argue that the crimes commission’s disproportionate criminalisation of southern young people may not suggest that these young people are responsible for the bulk of the intercontinental network of frauds originating from Nigeria. </p>
<p>In addition, we also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">argue</a> that religious and colonial history play a role in the north-south divide in the production and prosecution of cyber crime. </p>
<p>The British authority merged the northern and southern protectorates into a Nigerian colony in 1914, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.48.3.351">through colonisation</a>. The colonisers introduced Christianity to the colonised, blending it with Western education. However, the British Christianisation of indigenous people was only successful in the south, because <a href="http://doi.org/10.9734/BJEMT/2014/7080">Islam dominated the north and resisted Christianity</a>. And many Muslims view Western education with <a href="http://doi.org/10.9734/BJEMT/2014/7080">suspicion</a> because of its linkages to Christianity. Consequently, educated populations originate more often from the south than from the north.</p>
<p>And we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">maintain</a> that regional differences in educational attainment, originating from differing experiences of Christianisation and colonisation, interact with regional disparities in the production of cyber crime. </p>
<p>Nigeria’s more recent economic history also plays a significant role. The <a href="https://www.nigeriahc.org.uk/economy">Nigerian economy collapsed in the 1980s</a>, resulting in mass graduate unemployment. Unemployment does not cause crime. Nevertheless the graduates and dropouts from the south formed the bulk of the first cohort of <a href="https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/article/3792">high-profile Nigerian fraudsters</a>.</p>
<p>Over time, these layers of graduates produced many <a href="https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/article/3792">fraud templates</a> and became <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-49759392">role models</a>. They influenced younger generations from their communities and regions. </p>
<p>Mentees often followed in the footsteps of their mentors, and role models – as set out in this paper titled <a href="https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/article/3792">Birds of a Feather Flock Together</a>. We, therefore, argue that these social conditions meant the younger generation from the southern region became more likely than their northern counterparts to see online scamming as acceptable career paths. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-nigerian-hip-hop-lyrics-have-to-say-about-the-countrys-yahoo-boys-100732">What Nigerian hip-hop lyrics have to say about the country's Yahoo Boys</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Our article highlighted the value of public expressions on Twitter and legacies of colonisation rarely discussed in cyber crime scholarship. </p>
<p>By doing so, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2021.0332">we</a> sought to demonstrate how public opinion on Twitter serves as a lens through which seemingly disconnected factors are organised as related parts of a whole.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suleman Lazarus, Ph.D., is a Visiting Fellow at the Mannheim Centre for Criminology, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment at the LSE.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Button receives funding for various projects, but none relevant to this article. I am a member of the Labour Party, but again this isn't relevant to this article as I am not active. </span></em></p>Twitter users’ responses suggest that southern Yahoo boys are more criminalised by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission than their northern counterparts. We explain why.Suleman Lazarus, Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics and Political ScienceMark Button, Professor of Security and Fraud, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1789722022-05-10T12:04:32Z2022-05-10T12:04:32ZCountries with lower-than-expected vaccination rates show unusually negative attitudes to vaccines on Twitter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462048/original/file-20220509-20-ed0zvv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=148%2C175%2C6682%2C4809&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Social media sites like Twitter have been a major source of both true and false information regarding COVID-19 vaccines.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/syringes-forming-a-hashtag-symbol-on-blue-royalty-free-image/1216677104?adppopup=true">MicroStockHub/iStock via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>In countries with lower-than-expected COVID-19 vaccination rates, mentions of side effects and negative emotions <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10050735">dominated overall social media discourses on COVID-19 vaccines</a>, according to our new research published in the journal Vaccines.</p>
<p>Our team wanted to understand whether the tone of social media conversations around the world matched differing country-level vaccination rates. To do this, we analyzed more than 21.3 million tweets in 33 languages from 192 countries posted between November 2020 and August 2021, searching any tweet that mentioned “COVID-19” and “vaccine” or “vaccination.” We then calculated percentages of these tweets that mentioned keywords signifying adverse events of vaccination, such as side effects, blood clots or death. </p>
<p>In addition, we used <a href="https://www.brandwatch.com/blog/get-a-deeper-understanding-of-consumer-sentiment-with-emotion-analysis">an artificial intelligence algorithm</a> to analyze the sentiment and emotional tone of tweets. This algorithm can identify positive and negative sentiment as well as emotions in language – such as joy, fear, sadness or anger. We applied the algorithm to tweets mentioning COVID-19 vaccines, allowing us to measure the general emotional trends of different countries on Twitter.</p>
<p>Prior research has shown that emotions toward vaccines may <a href="https://nrchealth.com/uncovering-the-powerful-emotions-concealed-behind-covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy">influence whether a person decides to get a COVID-19 vaccination</a>. Our study allowed us to examine this theory at national scales.</p>
<p>Globally, 1.15% of tweets related to COVID-19 vaccines mentioned side effects. Sentiments toward vaccines were on average more negative than positive, with nearly two times more negative tweets than positive ones. But interestingly, negative emotions like fear, sadness or anger appeared only 0.7 times as often as joy worldwide. Using these numbers as baselines, our analysis controlled for national socioeconomic characteristics as well as numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths and then compared countries’ Twitter trends and vaccination rates to global averages. We removed ads and spam from our analysis, but did not remove tweets that may be posted by bots, as they are a part of the Twitter landscape.</p>
<p>We found that when social media discourse on vaccination is more negative than the global average in a country, the vaccination rate tends <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10050735">to be lower than expected</a>. </p>
<p>In particular, a high prevalence of tweets mentioning “side effects” or displaying fear, sadness or anger were predictive of low vaccination rates. For example, 1.42% of tweets from South Africa mentioned “side effects” – higher than the global average of 1.15% – and negative emotions appeared in tweets 1.55 times as often as joy – more than double the global average. At the time of our analysis, South Africa reported a vaccination rate of 30%, lower than other countries with similar characteristics.</p>
<p>We found similar correlations between negative Twitter sentiments and lower-than-expected vaccination rates in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines10050735">many other countries</a>, including Namibia, Ukraine, Croatia, Poland, Mexico, the Philippines and Burma.</p>
<p>In the U.S., fear, sadness or anger appeared almost as often as joy – showing more negativity than the global average. At the time of the analysis, the vaccination rate in the U.S. was 72%, lower than the 80% or above in many other high-income countries, like Germany and Canada.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462052/original/file-20220509-26-ue4k48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A drawing of a person holding a phone with lots of images related to COVID-19 coming out of the back of their head." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462052/original/file-20220509-26-ue4k48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/462052/original/file-20220509-26-ue4k48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462052/original/file-20220509-26-ue4k48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462052/original/file-20220509-26-ue4k48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462052/original/file-20220509-26-ue4k48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462052/original/file-20220509-26-ue4k48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/462052/original/file-20220509-26-ue4k48.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Negative emotions toward vaccines are tied to lower vaccination rates for individuals, and this research shows the trend holds at national level, too.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/symbol-of-the-manipulation-of-information-on-royalty-free-illustration/1287191706?adppopup=true">Pict Rider/iStock via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>In most developed countries – including the U.S. – many individuals are <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/NAT-COVID-19-PREPAREDNESS-PLAN.pdf">refusing vaccines even though vaccines are plentiful and easy to access</a>.</p>
<p>Social media has been a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/24/about-four-in-ten-americans-say-social-media-is-an-important-way-of-following-covid-19-vaccine-news/">critical means of disseminating COVID-19 information</a>. But Twitter, Facebook and other platforms have also <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/30642">been flooded with misinformation and disinformation</a> – as well as people’s personal sentiments on vaccination – since the beginning of the pandemic. Research shows that the more information about COVID-19 people are exposed to via social media, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250123">less accurate their knowledge about COVID-19</a>.</p>
<p>Our research expands on these individual-level findings and shows social media discourses are also associated with vaccination behavior at the national level. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Our findings show a correlation between social media discourse and vaccination, but this type of analysis cannot identify causality. We also did not explore the reasons behind why some countries show more negative emotions in tweets than others. This might be linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/access.2020.3027350">cultural differences </a> among countries.</p>
<p>Another limitation is due to the vagueness of language. The AI system we used is relatively good at characterizing sentiments and emotions in a tweet, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2020.1809576">but not 100% accurate</a>. Additionally, the AI is not as strong when analyzing tweets in languages other than English.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>The World Health Organization has declared the <a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/infodemic#tab=tab_1">widespread misinformation about COVID-19 an infodemic</a>, and <a href="https://onu.delegfrance.org/IMG/pdf/cross-regional_statement_on_infodemic_final_with_all_endorsements.pdf">132 countries have agreed to combat it</a>. Our findings support the idea that global efforts to combat misinformation, address negative emotions and promote positive language surrounding COVID-19 vaccination on social media may help boost global vaccination rates.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178972/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jungmi Jun received funding from the Social Media Core of Big Data Health Science Center, University of South Carolina.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ali Zain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A team analyzed more than 21 million tweets about COVID-19 vaccines and found that negative sentiments on social media were tied to lower-than-expected vaccination rates in many nations.Jungmi Jun, Associate Professor of Information and Communications, University of South CarolinaAli Zain, Ph.D. Student of Mass Communication, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1671762021-09-15T20:06:29Z2021-09-15T20:06:29ZI asked historians what find made them go ‘wait, wut?’ Here’s a taste of the hundreds of replies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421243/original/file-20210915-13-s7fchn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C309%2C2042%2C1341&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'That physicians in the Anti-Vaccine Society (England, early 19th C) were concerned that Jenner's smallpox inoculation gave people bovine-like features.' – historian's tweet in reply to author asking about memorable finds.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/historiansaln/status/1431942036513599489">Twitter/Wellcome</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Often when historians visit an archive or conduct research, we are not sure what we’ll find. With the help of archivists and librarians, we may know broadly what is contained in an archival record or a database, but we never know what may or may not be useful to us. Approaching our research material with a particular set of questions or analytical framework, what we actually find may leave us surprised, confused or taken aback in another way.</p>
<p>On Twitter, I <a href="https://twitter.com/evanishistory/status/1431621770423914496">asked a simple question</a>: Historians, what is the thing that made you go ‘wait, wut?’ in the archives or in your research? The response was overwhelming – over 300 replies and 450 quote tweets at last count. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1431621770423914496"}"></div></p>
<p>Historians, archivists and other researchers got in touch with great stories of their archival finds and tales of bizarre research moments. These ranged from the quirky to the disturbing to the profound. </p>
<p>Below I have chosen a handful that fall into each category to give an idea of the wide spectrum of what historians have come across in the field. </p>
<h2>The quirky</h2>
<p>Many of those who responded told stories of bizarre (and sometimes amusing) finds in the archives. Some were actual objects, such as <a href="https://twitter.com/cribb_robert/status/1432264017628708864">Robert Cribb finding</a> “17 tubes of processed opium, ready for smoking, in the Dutch archives from 1946 Indonesia”, <a href="https://twitter.com/danieljtmckay/status/1432121653711052802">Daniel McKay coming across</a> “negatives of an early Australian prime minister naked on holiday”, and “300 love letters from woman to woman around 1760, partly written in blood”, <a href="https://twitter.com/Donauschwalbe/status/1432663012813549572">located by Susanne Wosnitzka</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421017/original/file-20210914-17-o9h65y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421017/original/file-20210914-17-o9h65y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421017/original/file-20210914-17-o9h65y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421017/original/file-20210914-17-o9h65y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421017/original/file-20210914-17-o9h65y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421017/original/file-20210914-17-o9h65y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421017/original/file-20210914-17-o9h65y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421017/original/file-20210914-17-o9h65y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=309&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/Donauschwalbe/status/1432663012813549572">Twitter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Others found interesting correspondence. A.J. Bauer <a href="https://twitter.com/ajbauer/status/1431973400839401479">gave the example</a> of transcripts of phone-sex calls in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, after a politician wrote to Reagan to intervene against “dial-a-porn”. <a href="https://twitter.com/DualehY/status/1432050173660774401">Yasmin Dualeh uncovered</a> a “letter from Prof Phillip Hitti calling out his Princeton colleague Albert Einstein for spreading false rumours about him to students”. Maurice Casey <a href="https://twitter.com/MauriceJCasey/status/1431676663105007624">told of a letter</a> written to Soviet leader Josef Stalin by a New York University debating team “seeking help with their upcoming debate on capitalism”. </p>
<p>More strange tales emerged from newspaper reports and transcripts of speeches that historians discovered in their research. <a href="https://twitter.com/Xesquet/status/1432810932074393608">Xesc Mainzer mentioned</a> a 1970s story in a Majorcan newspaper of “an elderly Belgian woman loosing [sic] her denture when she bit a policeman’s leg”. In the Gerald Ford Presidential Library and Museum, <a href="https://twitter.com/DustinJComedy/status/1432343573056221187">Dustin Jones</a> “came across a speech given by John Wayne at a charity dinner Ford also attended making absolutely one of the least accurate predictions I saw in my studies”. What was the movie actor’s prediction? That “Watergate will be a footnote” in future history books. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421015/original/file-20210914-25-1ioy6cd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421015/original/file-20210914-25-1ioy6cd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421015/original/file-20210914-25-1ioy6cd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421015/original/file-20210914-25-1ioy6cd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421015/original/file-20210914-25-1ioy6cd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421015/original/file-20210914-25-1ioy6cd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421015/original/file-20210914-25-1ioy6cd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421015/original/file-20210914-25-1ioy6cd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/DustinJComedy/status/1432343573056221187">Twitter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The disturbing</h2>
<p>Historians also attested to the disturbing material that astounded them in their research, with the often bureaucratic and sterile nature of archival documents belying the troubling matter unearthed. </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/LachlanClohesy/status/1431761082335461380">Lachlan Clohesy found notes</a> of a talk by British nuclear physicist Sir Ernest Titterton about Australia’s potential nuclear arsenal. This talk “included making the point that if we had nuclear weapons, the cost of killing per man, woman and child would be cheaper than conventional warfare”. <a href="https://twitter.com/LachlanClohesy/status/1431858984827252742">Clohesy added</a> that Titterton’s notes included the actual prices. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421019/original/file-20210914-21-17jlw3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421019/original/file-20210914-21-17jlw3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421019/original/file-20210914-21-17jlw3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421019/original/file-20210914-21-17jlw3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421019/original/file-20210914-21-17jlw3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421019/original/file-20210914-21-17jlw3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421019/original/file-20210914-21-17jlw3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421019/original/file-20210914-21-17jlw3b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/LachlanClohesy/status/1431761082335461380">Twitter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On a similar topic, <a href="https://twitter.com/AtomicAnalyst/status/1432386468530503690">Stephen Schwartz found</a> that US Army Lieutenant General James M. Gavin had told Congress in 1957 that to win a nuclear war, the United States would need 151,000 nuclear weapons. Also on the topic of calculating deaths, <a href="https://twitter.com/postcolsandwich/status/1431942181921689601">Pépé Roswaldy came across</a> a Dutch colonial magazine promoting native land resettlement in Indonesia in the 1930s (which resulted in a number of deaths) and reporting an officer as saying: “The death number is just okay, nothing unusual.”</p>
<p>There were also more gruesome discoveries. <a href="https://twitter.com/GabeMoshenska/status/1431923623456030723">Gabe Moshenska told</a> of finding a description by famous Egyptologist Sir John Gardner Wilkinson of “his own diseased penis” in the <a href="http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/moshenska328/">papers of Thomas Pettigrew</a> at Yale. <a href="https://twitter.com/NarrelleMorris/status/1432179327353778177">Narrelle Morris mentioned</a> an encounter in the National Archives of Australia with “a rusty razor that a Japanese suspected war criminal tried to commit suicide with”, stating: “I drew it to the archivist’s attention.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421020/original/file-20210914-25-1wyi0e1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421020/original/file-20210914-25-1wyi0e1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421020/original/file-20210914-25-1wyi0e1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421020/original/file-20210914-25-1wyi0e1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421020/original/file-20210914-25-1wyi0e1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421020/original/file-20210914-25-1wyi0e1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421020/original/file-20210914-25-1wyi0e1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421020/original/file-20210914-25-1wyi0e1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screen Shot at pm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/GabeMoshenska/status/1431923623456030723">Twitter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The profound</h2>
<p>There were also the surprising finds that were of particular importance to the historians and to our understanding of the past. Becky Erbelding from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum <a href="https://twitter.com/rerbelding/status/1432368373225213953">came across</a> the only known photos of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele at Auschwitz-Birkenau, when a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/03/17/picturing-auschwitz">photo album was sent to the museum</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/JobPeterjob1/status/1432236342918868996">Peter Job told of a document</a> that Indonesian intelligence provided to an Australian diplomat in Jakarta in 1975. This document, Job explains, was a list of members of Fretilin, the East Timorese independence group, to be targeted after an Indonesian invasion. Job argues that this “[s]hows level of pre-invasion complicity” <a href="https://www.mup.com.au/books/a-narrative-of-denial-paperback-softback">by Australia</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421021/original/file-20210914-25-subjrf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421021/original/file-20210914-25-subjrf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/421021/original/file-20210914-25-subjrf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421021/original/file-20210914-25-subjrf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421021/original/file-20210914-25-subjrf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421021/original/file-20210914-25-subjrf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421021/original/file-20210914-25-subjrf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/421021/original/file-20210914-25-subjrf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=817&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/JobPeterjob1/status/1432236342918868996">Twitter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/arothmanhistory/status/1431789743939985410">For Adam Rothman</a>, it was an 1866 US Senate report on “rumors that newly freed people in the US were being kidnapped and sold into slavery in Cuba and Brazil”. This led to Rothman writing a <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674368125">whole book</a> based on this realisation. </p>
<p>Other historians also revealed that a chance find led them to new research projects. For example, <a href="https://twitter.com/ankahajkova/status/1432348591088078852">Anna Hájková</a> heard of a story of a forced relationship between a German women’s guard and a young female prisoner during the final year of the second world war. Intrigued by a tale from an oral history recording, Hájková developed this story into a ground-breaking <a href="https://academic.oup.com/gh/article-abstract/39/1/112/5871843?redirectedFrom=fulltext">work of queer history</a>. </p>
<p>These are only a few of the many stories that people revealed in reply to my tweet. As we do research into the past, historians are often confronted or surprised by what we come across. Some findings can be amusing titbits on the side of our research. Others greatly shift our knowledge of certain events or people. </p>
<p>Nearly every historian has a story of a research find that made them pause and, via Twitter, we were able to hear of so many.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167176/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evan Smith has in the past received funding from the Australian Academy of the Humanities, the Museum of Australian Democracy and the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>Historians, archivists and other researchers got in touch with tales of their archival finds and bizarre research moments. These ranged from the quirky to the disturbing to the profound.Evan Smith, Research Fellow in History, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1629122021-07-02T12:14:54Z2021-07-02T12:14:54ZNew York City or Los Angeles? Where you live says a lot about what and when you tweet<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409182/original/file-20210630-25-r9a84i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4440%2C2299&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tweeting from NYC? There's a good chance you're talking about art. LA? More likely health care.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flickr.com/photos/farmboyted/23101728031/">Times Square: farmboyted/Flickr, Sunset Boulevard: Doug Kerr/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Big Apple versus The Big Orange. The City of Dreams versus The City of Angels. I’m referring, of course, to the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwQPqpmiD88">ongoing rivalry</a> between New York City and Los Angeles. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8_mwyqbbXQ">Hilarious “survey” videos</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekOPaKqPKsU">talk shows</a> will give you one picture of the cities. My colleagues and I decided to take a more serious look at the differences between the cities, so we studied what everyone else was talking about – on Twitter.</p>
<p>We set out to answer a simple research question: Are people who are located near each other likely to tweet about similar things? To do so, we <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-021-00129-5">analyzed millions of GPS-enabled tweets</a> across New York City and LA. This type of study – looking at huge amounts of social media traffic by location – is useful for more than tracking pop culture memes in different cities. It could be valuable for understanding many aspects of urban life, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>If we were considering the case of a single, small community that takes pride in local events, celebrities and culture, the answer to our research question would be a resounding “yes.” One challenge in comparing two large, international cities is the reality that <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9IOtZgbaQyIC&pg=PA35#v=onepage&q&f=false">globalization has led to unprecedented interaction</a> among multiple cultures and peoples, along with Starbucks and McDonald’s seemingly in every city on the planet.</p>
<p>For cities that are international but also take pride in their uniqueness, the key is teasing out the extent to which local qualities or global culture dominate tweeting behavior. We designed our methods to be precise enough to account for the fact that, contrary to the fun videos, New York City and LA are quite similar. Both have high housing costs, famous educational institutions, hospitals, museums and other cultural establishments, and residents who tend to vote Democratic. </p>
<h2>Define ‘close’ and ‘same’</h2>
<p>Our study tackled two problems: There’s no simple definition of “close together,” and it’s difficult to say whether two tweets are about the same topic. We combined several definitions of “close together,” ranging from people located in the same city to the distance in miles between their coordinates, using <a href="https://www.igismap.com/haversine-formula-calculate-geographic-distance-earth/">a common formula</a> from spatial sciences. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408080/original/file-20210624-19-jo6ww5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2524%2C1239&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Side-by-side maps of Los Angeles and New York City covered with bright blue blobs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408080/original/file-20210624-19-jo6ww5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2524%2C1239&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408080/original/file-20210624-19-jo6ww5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408080/original/file-20210624-19-jo6ww5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408080/original/file-20210624-19-jo6ww5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=295&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408080/original/file-20210624-19-jo6ww5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408080/original/file-20210624-19-jo6ww5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408080/original/file-20210624-19-jo6ww5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=370&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tweeting in Los Angeles (left) and New York City (right). Blue indicates density of tweets; the brighter the blue the greater the number of tweets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Minda Hu</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s more difficult to determine whether two tweets are talking about similar things. Looking for common hashtags might suffice, but unfortunately many people do not use hashtags or use different hashtags when talking about the same thing. To overcome this problem, we used state-of-the-art <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa8685">natural language processing</a> technology. Algorithms developed in this field read and interpret sentences in a manner similar to the way humans do, and they are able to deal with nuance. </p>
<p>We used this technology to group tweets into clusters of topics. We then studied whether tweets falling inside the same cluster were also from people who were close together based on their GPS-enabled tweets. This allowed us to determine, for example, that clusters containing art-related words and phrases tended to arise more often in New York than LA. </p>
<h2>Health and wealth versus art and representing</h2>
<p>Even before we looked at who tweets about what, we found tweeting across New York City to be more evenly spread, while in LA, more tweeting happens in wealthier areas, including Calabasas – <a href="https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-home">home to Kim Kardashian</a> – Palos Verdes, West Hollywood and the coastal areas. </p>
<p>We also found that New Yorkers referred to themselves and their city far more often than Angelenos did. On a per capita basis, New Yorkers like to talk about art, while Angelenos like to talk about health care and hospitality. </p>
<p>LA generates more tweets than New York throughout the day, despite having a smaller population, but from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. local time, the two have comparable numbers of tweets. Tweeting in New York City rises sharply from 8 p.m. to a peak at 9 p.m., whereas tweeting in LA rises steadily from 2 p.m. to a peak at 7 p.m.</p>
<p><iframe id="5VVZ1" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/5VVZ1/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Computational social science</h2>
<p>Our methods are a case study in the growing field of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz8170">computational social science</a>, which aims to find insights in unique, often large, data sets using artificial intelligence models and algorithms. In contrast, traditional social science tends to rely on <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/our-methods/u-s-surveys/">surveys and polls</a> to quantify public perception about an issue. Though surveys have some distinct statistical advantages, they can be expensive and time-consuming to use for collecting quality data with good response rates. </p>
<p>For example, Gallup releases new survey data every few months and currently <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/marketplace/pp/prodview-uapupqnfizgci#offers">charges US$30,000 for academic licenses</a>. Decades ago, researchers found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/269336">monetary incentives increase response rates significantly</a>. Even today, online surveys are often accompanied by lottery-based promises of receiving an Amazon gift card. Researchers are working on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bdr.2020.100145">combining the benefits of traditional and computational social science</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://usc-isi-i2.github.io/ai-networks-society/heatmap_la_time.html">Zooming into our data</a>, we uncovered some fascinating trends that we hope future research will explore. We found, for example, that on a per capita basis, as crime increases, so do tweets, at least at the level of ZIP codes. Why do high-crime areas tweet more? We don’t know yet, but the trend is consistent across both New York City and LA. </p>
<h2>Tweeting, place and COVID-19</h2>
<p>Studying tweeting behavior by location could also be useful for understanding disparate outcomes of large-scale events. For example, our twitter analysis could help shed light on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected people in different places.</p>
<p>New York City was <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6946a2.htm">hit hard by COVID-19 early on</a>, showing that even major cities were affected in different ways by this terrible pandemic. <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-22/covid19-case-rates-la-county">New reporting</a> is now showing that even within cities, socioeconomically disadvantaged communities were disproportionately burdened. </p>
<p>Recently, we released <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/data6060064">a Twitter data set</a> covering 10 of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States to further study such disparities using computational social science. We are already using our methods across all of these cities to better understand how COVID-19 has affected certain groups, and the levels of expressed vaccine hesitancy among these groups.</p>
<p>Eventually, we hope to use our methods with a large set of international metropolises to study urban behavior.</p>
<p>[<em>Get our best science, health and technology stories.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/science-editors-picks-71/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=science-best">Sign up for The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mayank Kejriwal receives funding from the Zumberge Diversity & Inclusion grant, US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and the Yahoo! Faculty Research Engagement Program. </span></em></p>An AI analysis shows that differences in how New Yorkers and Angelenos tweet go beyond the words they use.Mayank Kejriwal, Research Assistant Professor of Industrial & Systems Engineering, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1606752021-06-17T15:52:10Z2021-06-17T15:52:10ZWe archived 84 million tweets to learn about the pandemic – each one is a tiny historical document<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407024/original/file-20210617-24-1iagcyu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C331%2C3684%2C1853&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-young-people-waiting-going-inside-1761080912">DisobeyArt/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1221076076224446465">first tweet</a> that the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care published about its new coronavirus testing regime came on January 25 2020. Less than a week later, the department <a href="https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1223244663982895111?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1223244663982895111%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconversation.com%2Fdrafts%2F160675%2Fedit">tweeted</a> its first announcement of two positive tests for COVID-19 in the UK, foreshadowing a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-54337098">chain of events</a> that would have a profound effect on people’s lives.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1223244663982895111"}"></div></p>
<p>As the coronavirus spread, these initial tweets were joined by millions of others, as people reacted to <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-why-people-are-panic-buying-loo-roll-and-how-to-stop-it-133115">panic buying</a>, rumoured <a href="https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/timeline-lockdown-web.pdf">lockdowns</a> and heart-wrenching <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-they-call-it-the-apocalypse-inside-italys-hardest-hit-hospital-11960597">stories</a> from across the world. </p>
<p>Soon, tweets about masks, the R number and herd immunity were competing with misinformation and conspiracy theories as the country “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210226-the-darkly-soothing-compulsion-of-doomscrolling">doomscrolled</a>” through Twitter. Eventually, tweets about loo roll would be replaced by tweets about the rollout of vaccines worldwide – and the long-awaited <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-sets-out-roadmap-to-cautiously-ease-lockdown-restrictions">roadmap</a> back to normality. </p>
<p>Taken together, these tweets are a sprawling historical document – a modern-day <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Samuel-Pepys/The-diary">diary of Samuel Pepys</a> – revealing how life has changed during the pandemic. But with millions of tweets to sift through, making sense of them all requires careful archiving. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I have performed this archiving, creating a <a href="https://traccovid.com/">publicly accessible database</a> of pandemic-related tweets that anyone can access. We hope the archive will help researchers and the public make sense of all that’s changed since the early weeks of 2020. </p>
<h2>Twitter as research tool</h2>
<p>Twitter is already regularly used as a research tool. One particularly interesting <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-81333-1">study</a> revealed how early warning signs of COVID-19 spreading in Europe, signalled by an uptick in the use of words like “pneumonia”, were on Twitter as early as January 2020. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A graph of tweets meaking in mid-March" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407018/original/file-20210617-17-114uti2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407018/original/file-20210617-17-114uti2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407018/original/file-20210617-17-114uti2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407018/original/file-20210617-17-114uti2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407018/original/file-20210617-17-114uti2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407018/original/file-20210617-17-114uti2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407018/original/file-20210617-17-114uti2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Our Twitter archive also shows how tweets mentioning ‘pneumonia’ increased long before March 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In other work, researchers have <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/42/3/510/5822639">examined</a> how world leaders turned to Twitter during the pandemic, and others have created <a href="https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2003/2003.10359.pdf">datasets</a> to expose how the public perceived their COVID-19 policies. Another <a href="https://publichealth.jmir.org/2020/2/e19273">dataset</a>, from the University of Southern California, contains 123 million tweets, covering English, French, Thai, Indonesian and more.</p>
<p>Then came studies of misinformation on Twitter, which has been a key concern since the start of the pandemic. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468696420300458">One study</a> found that completely false claims spread faster than tweets with partially false claims. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7152572/">Another study</a> found that unverified personal Twitter accounts featured the highest rate of COVID-19 misinformation, and that hashtags like #ncov2019 were more likely to be used in misinformation tweets than #Covid19.</p>
<p>Misinformation has also led to the emergence of conspiracy theories. Investigation shows they claim the virus was developed as <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Weaponized-How-rumors-about-COVID-19s-origins-led-to-a-narrative-arms-race.pdf">a biological weapon</a>, that the vaccination programme is a front for a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52847648">mass surveillance programme</a>, and even that the entire pandemic <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720938405">is a hoax</a>. </p>
<p>These findings helped pressure <a href="https://firstdraftnews.org/latest/how-social-media-platforms-are-responding-to-the-coronavirus-infodemic/">social media companies</a> to ban persistent offenders, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-emergency-medicine/article/twitter-pandemic-the-critical-role-of-twitter-in-the-dissemination-of-medical-information-and-misinformation-during-the-covid19-pandemic/9F42C2D99CA00FBAE50A66D107322211">remove misinformation tweets</a>, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/9/21284940/twitter-5g-coronavirus-covid-19-fact-check-disinformation-conspiracy-theories-label">hire more fact checkers</a>, and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/11/853886052/twitter-to-label-potentially-harmful-coronavirus-tweets">add warnings</a> to disputed information.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/misinformation-tech-companies-are-removing-harmful-coronavirus-content-but-who-decides-what-that-means-144534">Misinformation: tech companies are removing 'harmful' coronavirus content – but who decides what that means?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Archiving Twitter</h2>
<p>As useful as all these studies are in capturing public opinion and encouraging platforms to moderate misinformation, most of their datasets are not publicly accessible and you need special skills to access and analyse them.</p>
<p>To address this barrier, <a href="https://www.bcu.ac.uk/english/research/english-linguistics/rdues/research-projects/trac-covid">our team</a> at Birmingham City University has developed the Trust and Communication: Coronavirus Online Visual Dashboard (<a href="https://traccovid.com/">TRAC:COVID</a>). It’s a collection of over 84 million tweets in English that contain words and hashtags related to the pandemic. It currently covers UK tweets from January 2020 to April 2021, and will be extended as we acquire more data.</p>
<p>TRAC:COVID is built on methods from a discipline known as corpus linguistics, which uses software to research a large body of text, known as a corpus. A corpus can be any size, but many of the largest online corpora contain millions or even billions of words. </p>
<p>Corpus linguistics has recently been used to analyse healthcare communications, from work on <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Language-of-Patient-Feedback-A-Corpus-Linguistic-Study-of-Online-Health/Baker-Brookes-Evans/p/book/9781138702776">NHS patient feedback</a> to understanding <a href="http://cass.lancs.ac.uk/corpus-approaches-to-healthcare-communication/representations-of-obesity-in-the-news/">representations of obesity</a> in the British press. </p>
<p>One of the main benefits of corpus linguistics is that it helps us quickly analyse millions of words, allowing researchers to develop deeper insights compared to manual inspection. </p>
<p>Since our corpus covers a specific period, users can chart how language use changed during the pandemic, how particular words have acquired new meanings, or when certain words stop being used altogether – all without requiring specialist knowledge or language analysis skills. Pulling these different strands together, we can build a detailed timeline of how conversations about COVID-19 have changed.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407036/original/file-20210617-17-ysovdg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A figure showing words related to lockdown" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407036/original/file-20210617-17-ysovdg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407036/original/file-20210617-17-ysovdg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=193&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407036/original/file-20210617-17-ysovdg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=193&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407036/original/file-20210617-17-ysovdg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=193&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407036/original/file-20210617-17-ysovdg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407036/original/file-20210617-17-ysovdg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407036/original/file-20210617-17-ysovdg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=242&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Our archive reveals words associated with key terms like ‘lockdown’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">TRAC:COVID</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reducing vaccine hesitancy</h2>
<p>Our Twitter archive could also help us tackle ongoing issues related to the pandemic. Chief among them is vaccine hesitancy, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/misinformation-on-social-media-fuels-vaccine-hesitancy-a-global-study-shows-the-link-150652">studies have shown</a> to be fuelled by misinformation shared on platforms such as Twitter. </p>
<p>Using the TRAC:COVID archive, we’ve investigated vaccine-related tweets to get an idea of the scale and diversity of “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6122668/">anti-vax</a>” stances on Twitter. While the most frequent hashtags were generally positive, such as #vaccineswork and #getvaccinated, we found several hashtags that spoke to different communities of anti-vaxxers. </p>
<p>The diagram below illustrates how these anti-vax discourses intersect with conspiracy theories and bunk science, exposing how anti-vaxxers are part of a broader constellation of fringe beliefs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404271/original/file-20210603-15-13arorp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A network graph showing tweets related to vaccine misinformation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404271/original/file-20210603-15-13arorp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404271/original/file-20210603-15-13arorp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404271/original/file-20210603-15-13arorp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404271/original/file-20210603-15-13arorp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404271/original/file-20210603-15-13arorp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404271/original/file-20210603-15-13arorp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/404271/original/file-20210603-15-13arorp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Using our archive, we can quickly identify anti-vaccine keywords.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">TRAC:COVID</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In extreme cases, these beliefs can cause widespread <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-52731624?fbclid=IwAR08h6lPgGj7mZDqWzoQnDyaBEEJ_OdB2r5trTXEzOEIyplTfPdd1hZHehI">medical harm</a>. For example, the UK has seen an increase in children contracting measles and mumps due to a growing number of parents choosing not to have their children vaccinated because of the fraudulent suggestion that the MMR vaccine <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c7452">causes autism</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/measles-outbreaks-and-political-crises-go-hand-in-hand-122968">Measles outbreaks and political crises go hand in hand</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Tweets about COVID-19 represent an important cultural artefact, charting how conversations and concerns about the pandemic have shifted over time. With our new resource, people will be able to explore a giant archive of pandemic perspectives, deepening their understanding of what preoccupied UK Twitter users during a unique period of world history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research featured in this article was a collaboration between Dr Andrew Kehoe (Principal Investigator), Dr Tatiana Tkacukova, Dr Mark McGlashan, Dr Robert Lawson, Dr Selina Schmidt, and Mr Matt Gee. Funding was received to develop TRAC:COVID from the Arts and Humanities Research Council as part of UKRI’s Covid-19 research programme.</span></em></p>During the pandemic, researchers have treated Twitter as a sprawling and evolving historical document.Robert Lawson, Associate Professor in Sociolinguistics, Birmingham City UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1478392020-10-16T02:21:37Z2020-10-16T02:21:37ZHow’s your life under lockdown? Tweets tell the tale of how neighbourhoods compare<p>Melbourne has endured one of the <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/is-melbourne-s-coronavirus-lockdown-really-the-longest-in-the-world-here-s-how-other-countries-stack-up">strictest COVID-19 lockdowns</a> in the world. <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-06/coronavirus-restrictions-victorian-government-may-extend-5km/12732058">Public health announcements</a> indicate restrictions are set to continue despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-14-day-rolling-average-of-5-new-daily-cases-is-the-wrong-trigger-for-easing-melbourne-lockdown-lets-look-at-under-investigation-cases-instead-147906">experts warning</a> that Victoria is unlikely to get the daily average number of new cases down to just five in the near future. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.monash.edu/mada/research/evaluating-neighbourhood-sentiment">Our research</a> shows some people lack access to the essential services and amenities that support healthy and liveable places during the lockdown. We tracked 80,000 location-based tweets from January 2020 to September 2020 to understand how people are responding to Melbourne’s lockdowns. </p>
<p>Social media such as <a href="https://twitter.com/">Twitter</a> can provide a window into how people are emotionally managing during the lockdown and how well their neighbourhood meets their needs in this challenging time. This is particularly important as policy conversations turn to the importance of 20-minute neighbourhoods and living locally in the post-COVID city.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/people-love-the-idea-of-20-minute-neighbourhoods-so-why-isnt-it-top-of-the-agenda-131193">People love the idea of 20-minute neighbourhoods. So why isn't it top of the agenda?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Research has shown the inequality of neighbourhood access to services and amenities can have serious <a href="https://theconversation.com/walking-and-cycling-to-work-makes-commuters-happier-and-more-productive-117819">physical</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/parks-and-green-spaces-are-important-for-our-mental-health-but-we-need-to-make-sure-that-everyone-can-benefit-142322">mental health</a> impacts. These differences raise issues of equity and whether <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/10/the-new-covid-normal-is-victoria-ready-to-come-out-of-lockdown">responses are proportionate</a> to the threat. It also means some neighbourhoods are ill-equipped to support the anticipated increase in people working from home during and after the pandemic.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-cities-are-full-of-parks-so-why-are-we-looking-to-golf-courses-for-more-open-space-147559">Our cities are full of parks, so why are we looking to golf courses for more open space?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Life under lockdown isn’t the same for all</h2>
<p>On August 2, the Victorian government established strict restrictions on movement including a 5km travel bubble and curfew in Melbourne. In a cross-discipline collaboration between Monash’s Art, Design & Architecture and Data Futures Institute, our analysis of Twitter data focused on neighbourhood amenity and opportunity at this point. Our findings reveal the differences in resident well-being across different suburbs during lockdown.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Entrance to Luna Park in St Kilda" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363113/original/file-20201013-17-fxgfaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363113/original/file-20201013-17-fxgfaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363113/original/file-20201013-17-fxgfaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363113/original/file-20201013-17-fxgfaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363113/original/file-20201013-17-fxgfaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363113/original/file-20201013-17-fxgfaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363113/original/file-20201013-17-fxgfaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Residents of the suburb of St Kilda have been more likely to keep smiling under lockdown than the city as a whole.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexa Gower</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the introduction of the first lockdown, the number of tweets posted about people’s local neighbourhoods increased by 158% compared to January and February 2020. This highlights how the lockdown turned people’s attention towards their residential area. It also indicates neighbourhood amenities became more significant for people who are no longer commuting to work in Melbourne’s CBD or other places. </p>
<p>People living in areas with poor access to amenities expressed higher levels of negative sentiment about their neighbourhood during the lockdown periods. Sentiment in these areas dropped three times in the year. There was a 13% drop in sentiment in March when the first lockdown came in and another 15.5% fall with the June lockdown 2.0. Sentiment continued to fall by 30% in August. </p>
<p>In contrast, tweets about amenity-rich areas revealed a 4% rise in positive sentiment. These residents detailed how their neighbourhood amenity helped their well-being during this time. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363614/original/file-20201015-21-1apbv62.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing trends in positive sentiments in tweets from high- and low-amenity areas" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363614/original/file-20201015-21-1apbv62.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363614/original/file-20201015-21-1apbv62.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363614/original/file-20201015-21-1apbv62.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363614/original/file-20201015-21-1apbv62.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=185&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363614/original/file-20201015-21-1apbv62.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363614/original/file-20201015-21-1apbv62.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363614/original/file-20201015-21-1apbv62.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=233&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We see contrasting trends in sentiment in tweets from high-amenity and low-amenity neighbourhoods under lockdown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/twitter-posts-show-that-people-are-profoundly-sad-and-are-visiting-parks-to-cheer-up-139953">Twitter posts show that people are profoundly sad – and are visiting parks to cheer up</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Missing aspects of going to work</h2>
<p>We also see that not everyone is as supportive of remote working arrangements as some <a href="https://theconversation.com/remote-working-is-here-to-stay-but-that-doesnt-mean-the-end-of-offices-or-city-centres-145414">studies claim</a>. Before the lockdown, tweets about places in Melbourne often highlighted satisfaction with working environments. These tweets spoke of walking between meetings, and places to gather and eat out: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Beautiful day in the city – just perfect for walking between meetings and lunch at the cafe. (Outer Melbourne, March 6).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Under lockdown, the number of tweets with negative sentiment about residential neighbourhoods throughout Melbourne increased by 124%. People posted negative opinions about what was missing from their local area and expressed longing for the amenities found in their workplace. People also missed their daily commute and the opportunity to walk between places outside their neighbourhood: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although I’m loving working from home, one thing that I really miss is my walk to the office from the station. (Outer Melbourne, July 9). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Moreover, tweets highlighted that some people don’t have enough space to work from home </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I am working at home I’m currently sharing space with the indoor clothes hangers. (Outer Melbourne, April 16).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These tweets remind us of the challenges some people face when working from home and indicate how commuting enables access to amenities that their neighbourhoods lack. </p>
<h2>Some areas make work from home a joy</h2>
<p>In comparison, tweets that expressed positive neighbourhood sentiment during the lockdown referred specifically to the benefits of parks and public facilities. In high-amenity areas, people expressed gratitude for these places. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Social isolating done right … I’m so #grateful to have these sort of parks right on my doorstep so I can exercise both me and the dogs 🙂🐕 (Inner Melbourne, March 29)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Being able to experience the natural environment improved their mood. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I went outside for a walk and took a moment to stand in a spot where the onshore bay breeze could freely hit me in the face while I listened to <em>Sign ☮️ the Times</em>. I needed that so badly. #starfishandcoffee’ (Inner Melbourne, April 16)</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/parks-and-green-spaces-are-important-for-our-mental-health-but-we-need-to-make-sure-that-everyone-can-benefit-142322">Parks and green spaces are important for our mental health – but we need to make sure that everyone can benefit</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Some were happy to spend more time locally even when lockdown measures had eased. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The joys of working from home and walking to support our local coffee shop. Then you are pleasantly surprised by Teddy and his marmalade skills. Just sweet! (Outer Melbourne, May 27)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Increased positive sentiment about local amenity continued longer into the year than negative tweets, highlighting the broad benefits local amenities provide to communities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363616/original/file-20201015-15-13kaufp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Chart showing sentiment trends for Sandringham, St Kilda and Greater Melbourne." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363616/original/file-20201015-15-13kaufp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363616/original/file-20201015-15-13kaufp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=139&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363616/original/file-20201015-15-13kaufp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363616/original/file-20201015-15-13kaufp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=139&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363616/original/file-20201015-15-13kaufp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363616/original/file-20201015-15-13kaufp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363616/original/file-20201015-15-13kaufp.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=174&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How people fare under lockdown has a lot to do with where they live.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Work to be done on neighbourhood amenity</h2>
<p>Comparing Melbourne’s Twitter data across different places provides insight into the impacts of neighbourhood amenity on resident well-being during lockdown. It also shows the uneven access to important neighbourhood facilities in different places and the consequences for remote working. </p>
<p>The lockdown experience highlights that if Melbourne is serious about achieving a city of 20-minute neighbourhoods, there is immediate work to do to improve access to everyday amenities and support remote working.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/reclaiming-the-streets-we-all-can-have-a-say-in-the-new-normal-after-coronavirus-137703">Reclaiming the streets? We all can have a say in the 'new normal' after coronavirus</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carl Grodach receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dickson Lukose receives funding from Australian Research Council, and Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation Malaysia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoff Webb receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Medical Research Future Fund and the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexa Gower and Liton Kamruzzaman do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The differences in sentiment in areas of high and low neighbourhood amenity have been clear under Melbourne’s tough COVID restrictions. It’s further evidence of the impacts of inequity on well-being.Alexa Gower, Postdoctoral researcher, Monash UniversityCarl Grodach, Professor and Director of Urban Planning & Design, Monash UniversityDickson Lukose, Professor and Senior Data Scientist, Data Futures Institute, Monash UniversityGeoff Webb, Professor and Research Director, Data Futures Institute, Monash UniversityLiton Kamruzzaman, Associate Professor of Urban Planning, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1421392020-07-13T13:46:27Z2020-07-13T13:46:27ZFacts or fake news: Revealing patterns in the COVID-19 tweets of Trudeau and Trump<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346736/original/file-20200709-54-2a9ouo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=47%2C44%2C1801%2C1158&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Donald Trump have had different approaches to tweeting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here the two talk during a NATO session in December 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From its ostensible origins in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, COVID-19 has spread across the globe. There are now a staggering <a href="https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019">11.5 million cases worldwide, resulting in over half a million deaths</a>. March saw the pandemic’s beginnings in Canada and the United States, followed by widespread lockdowns meant to slow the progression of the virus. </p>
<p>While the number of new daily cases in Canada is declining, U.S. cases have reached record highs. The U.S. represents four per cent of the world’s population, but accounts for <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/health/us-coronavirus-toll-in-numbers-june-trnd/index.html">one-quarter of COVID-19 cases and deaths</a>. As of July 8, 2020, <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/">there were 9,051 cases per million people in the U.S. compared to 2,812 cases per million in Canada</a>. These statistics point to a substantial difference in community spread in the two countries. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346437/original/file-20200708-3991-1tm6xe7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346437/original/file-20200708-3991-1tm6xe7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346437/original/file-20200708-3991-1tm6xe7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346437/original/file-20200708-3991-1tm6xe7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346437/original/file-20200708-3991-1tm6xe7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346437/original/file-20200708-3991-1tm6xe7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346437/original/file-20200708-3991-1tm6xe7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346437/original/file-20200708-3991-1tm6xe7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Total confirmed cases of COVID-19 per million people in the U.S. and Canada.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(OurWorldInData.org)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Twitter provides an online record of political leaders’ policies and personal sentiments. Both Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Donald Trump often tweet to large numbers of followers. The <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">@realDonaldTrump</a> Twitter account has 82.7 million followers with more than <a href="https://www.trackalytics.com/twitter/profile/realdonaldtrump/">20,000 tweets during Trump’s presidency</a>. The account <a href="https://twitter.com/JustinTrudeau">@JustinTrudeau</a> has five million followers and has <a href="https://www.trackalytics.com/twitter/profile/justintrudeau/">tweeted 18,000 times since Trudeau became prime minister</a>. </p>
<p>There’s a significant difference in how the two leaders have talked about this virus on Twitter. One has focused more on politics, while the other has focused on policy and public health.</p>
<h2>Networks of Twitter keywords</h2>
<p>We conducted a quantitative analysis of themes emerging in Trudeau’s and Trump’s tweets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study used network science, which considers systems and their interactions. We formed what are called “co-occurrence networks” based on keywords taken from tweets, with two keywords linked if they appear in the same tweet. For example, if the keywords “covid19” and “pandemic” appear in the same tweet, then they were linked. The monthly top 100 keywords from @JustinTrudeau and @realDonaldTrump were extracted based on their frequency.</p>
<p>To simplify the networks, we removed retweets and common stop words such as “the” and “at.” We created visualizations of the networks to group the keywords into thematically related clusters or communities. We find a higher proportion of links inside communities and a sparser set of links between them. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345899/original/file-20200706-3980-k5lgnf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345899/original/file-20200706-3980-k5lgnf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345899/original/file-20200706-3980-k5lgnf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345899/original/file-20200706-3980-k5lgnf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345899/original/file-20200706-3980-k5lgnf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345899/original/file-20200706-3980-k5lgnf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345899/original/file-20200706-3980-k5lgnf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345899/original/file-20200706-3980-k5lgnf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trudeau’s March Twitter keyword network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345900/original/file-20200706-3975-qec1sb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345900/original/file-20200706-3975-qec1sb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345900/original/file-20200706-3975-qec1sb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345900/original/file-20200706-3975-qec1sb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345900/original/file-20200706-3975-qec1sb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345900/original/file-20200706-3975-qec1sb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345900/original/file-20200706-3975-qec1sb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump’s March Twitter keyword network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The algorithm extracted the communities in the keywords. Keywords and links were scaled up or down in size depending on their frequency. Communities of keywords were assigned colours such as blue, green and orange, and more correlated keywords were located closer together in the network.</p>
<p>Looking back at the first two months of 2020, Trudeau’s and Trump’s tweets were unrelated to COVID-19. Trudeau focused on the shooting down of the passenger plane in Iran that had 57 Canadian citizens on board, followed by protests for the Wet’suwet’en First Nation. Trump focused on his impeachment trial and endorsing candidates in Republican congressional primaries. </p>
<p>In March, the federal government’s response to COVID-19 dominated Trudeau’s Twitter keywords. In contrast, other topics competed for prevalence in Trump’s tweets. These included tweets about fake news (closely situated to “coronavirus” in the keyword network) and perceived unfairness from the Democrats.</p>
<p>Claims of fake news coverage of the severity of the pandemic dominated Trump’s April tweets. Trudeau’s tweets centred on topics such as wage subsidies and appreciation for front-line workers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345902/original/file-20200706-3967-ptcpfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345902/original/file-20200706-3967-ptcpfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345902/original/file-20200706-3967-ptcpfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345902/original/file-20200706-3967-ptcpfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345902/original/file-20200706-3967-ptcpfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345902/original/file-20200706-3967-ptcpfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345902/original/file-20200706-3967-ptcpfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345902/original/file-20200706-3967-ptcpfs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trudeau’s April Twitter keyword network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345901/original/file-20200706-4013-1optmex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345901/original/file-20200706-4013-1optmex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345901/original/file-20200706-4013-1optmex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345901/original/file-20200706-4013-1optmex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345901/original/file-20200706-4013-1optmex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345901/original/file-20200706-4013-1optmex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345901/original/file-20200706-4013-1optmex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345901/original/file-20200706-4013-1optmex.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump’s April Twitter keyword network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In May and June, keywords from Trump’s tweets revolved around Obamagate, Republican endorsements and transit funding. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345904/original/file-20200706-29-1vrtvy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345904/original/file-20200706-29-1vrtvy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345904/original/file-20200706-29-1vrtvy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345904/original/file-20200706-29-1vrtvy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345904/original/file-20200706-29-1vrtvy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345904/original/file-20200706-29-1vrtvy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345904/original/file-20200706-29-1vrtvy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345904/original/file-20200706-29-1vrtvy5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump’s May Twitter keyword network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345905/original/file-20200706-3975-5cxt07.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345905/original/file-20200706-3975-5cxt07.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345905/original/file-20200706-3975-5cxt07.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345905/original/file-20200706-3975-5cxt07.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345905/original/file-20200706-3975-5cxt07.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345905/original/file-20200706-3975-5cxt07.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345905/original/file-20200706-3975-5cxt07.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump’s June Twitter keyword network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Trudeau’s keyword networks for both months were in stark contrast to Trump’s, with keywords related to the virus remaining prevalent.</p>
<h2>What the networks tell us</h2>
<p>The keyword networks from March to June point to divergent messaging on the pandemic by the two leaders, as reflected in their tweets. While both leaders focused on COVID-19 in their March tweets, Trump did increasingly less so over the coming months. His reference to the virus was often through a political lens, with keywords related to the media or Democratic rivals. </p>
<p>For each month we considered, the keywords fell into a small collection of communities, ranging from three to five. These observations are consistent with an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-math-behind-trumps-tweets-100314">earlier analysis</a> of Trump’s tweets around his election.</p>
<p>Trump famously made comments <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/28/trump-coronavirus-misleading-claims">downplaying the pandemic</a> in its early days, and made subsequent statements referencing progress controlling the pandemic, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/04/coronavirus-update-us/">despite a record number of new cases</a>. The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rushed-reopening-led-to-case-spikes-that-threaten-to-overwhelm-hospitals-in-some-states/2020/07/05/c936bd16-beea-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html">early reopening of U.S. states</a> may have been a possible cause for increased cases.</p>
<p>In contrast, Trudeau has stayed consistent in his daily briefings and tweets since lockdowns began in March, highlighting economic recovery programs and providing public health-care information.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345903/original/file-20200706-3958-1l89ph5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345903/original/file-20200706-3958-1l89ph5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345903/original/file-20200706-3958-1l89ph5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345903/original/file-20200706-3958-1l89ph5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345903/original/file-20200706-3958-1l89ph5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345903/original/file-20200706-3958-1l89ph5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345903/original/file-20200706-3958-1l89ph5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345903/original/file-20200706-3958-1l89ph5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trudeau’s May Twitter keyword network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345906/original/file-20200706-29-zf7u0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345906/original/file-20200706-29-zf7u0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345906/original/file-20200706-29-zf7u0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345906/original/file-20200706-29-zf7u0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345906/original/file-20200706-29-zf7u0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345906/original/file-20200706-29-zf7u0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345906/original/file-20200706-29-zf7u0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345906/original/file-20200706-29-zf7u0u.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trudeau’s June Twitter keyword network.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Interestingly, Trudeau’s minority government has been <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/grenier-polltracker-26june2020-1.5627260">enjoying a surge in popularity</a>, while polls suggest <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/06/25/americans-disapprove-of-trumps-coronavirus-handling-by-highest-margin-yet-poll-finds/#3dcc4cb44df8">rising disapproval of the Trump administration’s</a> handling of the pandemic. </p>
<p>As the COVID-19 becomes part of the new normal, there is greater public awareness of the effectiveness of lockdowns and actions needed to curb the spread of the virus such as social distancing, hand-washing, and wearing masks. However, <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-do-so-many-americans-refuse-to-wear-face-masks-it-may-have-nothing-to-do-with-politics-2020-06-16">not everyone is willing to comply</a>. </p>
<p>Our network analysis suggests that consistent social media messaging by federal leadership may play a role in influencing views of the pandemic and efforts to contain it. We hope that political leaders with large platforms will use them to amplify the advice of medical professionals and help slow the spread of the virus.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142139/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Bonato receives funding from NSERC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Nazareth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A tale of two leaders on Twitter in the age of COVID-19.Anthony Bonato, Professor of Mathematics, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityAlex Nazareth, MSc Candidate, Applied Math, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1194442019-07-01T10:53:31Z2019-07-01T10:53:31ZRussian Twitter propaganda predicted 2016 US election polls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281819/original/file-20190628-94688-rh7yob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump's poll numbers went up after high levels of Russian troll activity, though Clinton's didn't go down. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Campaign-2016-Why-It-Matters-Jobs/43bb0e614b414b4883b7c61a1433d21b/716/0">AP/Mary Altaffer, Chuck Burton</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Robert Mueller completed his <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/18/politics/full-mueller-report-pdf/index.html">long-awaited investigation</a> into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, he left <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/congress-raises-questions-mueller-left-unanswered-about-trump-russia-n1016761">many questions unanswered</a>. </p>
<p>But one conclusion was unequivocal: <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/18/708850903/read-the-full-mueller-report-with-redactions">Russia unleashed an extensive campaign</a> of fake news and disinformation on social media with the aim of distorting U.S. public opinion, sowing discord and swinging the election in favor of the Republican candidate Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Because of Mueller’s work (and that of countless other journalists and academics) it can now be said with certainty that <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russian-trolls-who-interfered-2016-u-s-election-also-made-n1013811">Russian trolls tried to change what Americans thought</a> during the 2016 election. </p>
<p>The unanswered, and much harder question is: Were they successful?</p>
<p>We may be a step closer to knowing the answer.</p>
<p>In a statistical analysis <a href="https://firstmonday.org/article/view/10107/8049">published in First Monday</a> , my team and I tracked the activity of Russian social media trolls on Twitter in the run up to the 2016 election. </p>
<p>We then compared the fluctuating popularity of this propaganda with that of the two presidential candidates: Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.</p>
<p>We found that exposure to Russian propaganda may have helped change American minds in favor of Republican candidate Trump. </p>
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<h2>Conservatives mobilized</h2>
<p>Our results show that the weeks when <a href="https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/07/20/russian-trolls-mobilized-on-twitter-on-oct-6-2016-why/">Russian trolls were accumulating likes and retweets on Twitter</a>, that activity reliably foreshadowed gains for Trump in the opinion polls. This finding survived a number of our additional checks, including accounting for the popularity of Trump’s own personal Twitter account. </p>
<p>It turns out that the activity of Russian Twitter trolls was a better predictor of Donald Trump’s polling numbers than <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump">his own Twitter activity</a>.</p>
<p>Yet Hillary Clinton’s popularity was not affected. That is particularly surprising given that much of the Russian propaganda was <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/russia-facebook-clinton-campaign-d6d76b2a2e82/">designed to discredit her</a>.</p>
<p>Why did Russian propaganda mobilize Americans behind the unorthodox Donald Trump, yet fail to discourage people from supporting Clinton?</p>
<p>There are several possible reasons for this. The data suggests that Russian trolls <a href="https://www.cyberwar2016book.com/">targeted conservative-leaning voters</a> who would not be likely to vote for Clinton in the first place. One example of that is when they <a href="https://russiatweets.com/author/TEN_GOP/tweets">used the December 2015 San Bernardino shooting to stoke fears of Muslim immigration</a>. It was shortly after this that Donald Trump first mentioned his “Muslim ban” policy.</p>
<p>The targeting of conservatives was made more potent by the structure of the U.S. media ecosystem. </p>
<p>Because <a href="https://www.foxnews.com">Fox News</a> is the lone conservative network in mainstream U.S. media, there is plenty of space for alternative sources of conservative news. During the 2016 election, <a href="https://www.breitbart.com">Breitbart</a> (a highly partisan news website, once edited by Steve Bannon, who later became Donald Trump’s chief strategist) rapidly grew into this opening, <a href="https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190923624.001.0001/oso-9780190923624">becoming the second-most popular source for conservative news</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="zmNad" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/zmNad/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/7/2521">Breitbart is extremely partisan and performs badly with fact-checkers, particularly when compared with mainstream networks</a>. It was a sluice through which junk information flowed to conservative audiences, including <a href="https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2016/08/01/clinton-cash-khizr-khans-deep-legal-financial-connections-saudi-arabia-hillarys-clinton-foundation-connect-terror-immigration-email-scandals/">conspiracies surrounding Clinton’s supposed financial ties to Saudi Arabia</a> and <a href="https://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-media-trump-harvard-study.php">near constant fear-mongering about immigration</a>.</p>
<p>Social media has some special features that make it a virulent substrate for propaganda. The Russians exploited that.</p>
<p>In a traditional television election advertisement, the type political parties routinely purchased until recent years, the message is impersonal and the political intention is fully disclosed. Compare this to the <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/maxseddon/documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america">Russian social media trolls</a> who masqueraded as fake local newspapers and <a href="https://firstmonday.org/article/view/10107/8049">concerned members of the community</a>. In doing this they cultivated a false trustworthiness that hid their true political intentions.</p>
<h2>Affecting the election</h2>
<p>My research suggests that Russian trolls helped shift U.S public opinion in Trump’s favor in 2016. But was this enough to affect the outcome of the election? </p>
<p>The answer is that we still don’t know. A closer look at the battleground states that were decided by handful of votes may give us an answer. </p>
<p>But given that all Clinton needed to flip the election in her favor was <a href="https://www.weeklystandard.com/john-mccormack/the-election-came-down-to-77-744-votes-in-pennsylvania-wisconsin-and-michigan-updated">an additional 75,000 votes in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania</a>, it is a prospect that should be taken seriously.</p>
<p><iframe id="4oUq4" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/4oUq4/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>One scholar who does <a href="https://www.cyberwar2016book.com/">take this seriously</a> is Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the <a href="https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/">Annenberg Public Policy Center</a> and co-founder of <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/">FactCheck.org</a>. </p>
<p>She points out that there was widespread disaffection on both sides of the political aisle during the campaign, meaning that more voters than usual were undecided. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls">Thirteen percent of voters didn’t make their final choice until the last week before the election</a>. This last week happened to be a time when Russian Twitter trolls were at their most prolific, publishing many <a href="https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/9638">tweets disproportionately laden with emotional words eliciting anger and fear</a>. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls">Post-election analysis by CNN</a> shows that the majority of the undecided 13% voted for Donald Trump.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/119444/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Damian Ruck receives funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>An analysis of social media troll activity during the 2016 election campaign shows that exposure to Russian propaganda may have helped change American minds in favor of Republican candidate Trump.Damian Ruck, Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1167952019-06-13T12:41:51Z2019-06-13T12:41:51Z‘I still get tweets to go back in the kitchen’ – the enduring power of sexism in sports media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279231/original/file-20190612-32361-mhtbnl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lesley Visser was one of the first female television sports reporters – but she's appalled at how little progress has been made.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Sports-Minnesota-United-/d41890b5deb24287becbb18a7b5cf8d6/1/0">AP Photo/Bill Sikes</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The story of the 2019 U.S. women’s national soccer team is not yet written, but its opening chapter – <a href="https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/48600795">a 13-0 drubbing of Thailand</a> – has inspired American fans hoping for a championship repeat. </p>
<p>The U.S. women’s soccer team has long been the envy of the world. And yet, thanks to a scheduling “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/sports/womens-world-cup-preview.html">oversight</a>,” should the squad make the Women’s World Cup final on July 7, they’ll have to complete for viewers with the Copa America and Gold Cup finals, which will be held on the same day.</p>
<p>In other words, two regional men’s soccer tournaments might upstage a signature worldwide women’s sporting event.</p>
<p>To me, this scheduling “oversight” is just a microcosm of the way women are treated in the world of sports. And it isn’t just relegated to the playing field. </p>
<p>In my new book, “<a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Power_of_Sports.html?id=eVZxDwAAQBAJ">The Power of Sports</a>,” I draw upon dozens of interviews to look at the barriers female athletes and journalists face. </p>
<p>It’s worse than you think. </p>
<h2>Lack of interest or lack of coverage?</h2>
<p>Almost every single survey of sports media over the years – irrespective of the sport or outlet – finds female athletics wildly underrepresented relative to men’s. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/2167479515588761">one 25-year-long study</a> showed that local news outlets spend only 3% of their airtime covering women’s sports, with ESPN allocating a mere 2% of its coverage. </p>
<p>Not until the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278591905701964">1990s</a> did women’s sports begin receiving – barely – more attention than sports involving horses and dogs. Of course, that didn’t prevent Serena Williams’ 2015 selection as Sports Illustrated’s “Sportsperson of the Year” from <a href="https://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-serena-williams-american-pharoah-sports-illustrated-20151214-htmlstory.html">igniting a debate</a> over whether Triple Crown thoroughbred American Pharaoh deserved the honor instead.</p>
<p>The typical rebuttal to the lack of coverage is an alleged lack of interest.</p>
<p>But this obscures the circular logic that bedevils women’s sports: The way in which sports media outlets market and cover games partly determines how much fan interest they’re able to gin up. In other words, ratings are often generated by hyping the games. When ratings go up, it justifies the use of those resources.</p>
<p>So when a WNBA game gets punted to an obscure cable channel and has a low production value, it sends a message about priorities to audiences.</p>
<p>Networks like to claim they’re just responding to market forces when they ignore these games. But it’s never been a level playing field: <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-case-for-boosting-wnba-player-salaries-100805">Women’s sports rarely receive the media attention lavished on men’s</a>, so the comparison seems unfair.</p>
<p>When I asked ESPN’s executive vice president for programming and production about this problem, he shrugged. “Any media entity,” he said, “tend[s] to focus the majority of [its] coverage on the topics that are most interesting to your viewers, right?” </p>
<p>In other words, ESPN claims to be amoral on questions of gender equality. Its obligation is to simply give the audience what it thinks it wants.</p>
<h2>All men, all the time</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, sports media remains an overwhelmingly male field.</p>
<p>More than 90% of <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/2167479515588761">anchors</a>, <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/2167479512467977">commentators</a> and <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/2167479513482118">editors</a> are men. Not until 2017 did a woman announce a men’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/sports/ncaabasketball/another-woman-at-the-march-madness-mike-that-only-took-2-decades.html">March Madness</a> or <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/sports/nfl-beth-mowins-julie-dicaro.html">Monday Night Football</a> game.</p>
<p>Might this color the way female athletes are portrayed? <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1177/2167479512472883">One 2013 review</a> highlighted some notable disparities. When talking and writing about female athletes, commentators tend to focus more on their emotions. They tend to downplay their physical prowess on the field and <a href="https://www.sicovers.com/anna-kournikova-2000-june-05">sexualize</a> their bodies off the field.</p>
<p>Conditions aren’t much better for women working in the media.</p>
<p>Lesley Visser was a sportscaster across multiple networks for four decades. In the late 1970s, as a young reporter for The Boston Globe, she received – and <a href="https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2016/01/25/Champions/Visser.aspx">ignored</a> – a media credential stipulation that forbade “women or children in the press box.”</p>
<p>She assumed that waves of women would have followed her lead. But she can’t believe how little progress has been made. </p>
<p>“I go to the NFC Championship, and in the press box there are maybe three women out of 2,000 credentials,” she told me. “I think we’re at the same percentage as in the 1980s.”</p>
<h2>Social media mobs swarm</h2>
<p>The few that do break through can expect to be targeted on social media.</p>
<p>“I still get tweets to go back in the kitchen,” Tina Cervasio, a sports reporter for Fox’s New York affiliate, told me. “They’re worried about color of hair and how a woman looks. … If I was as fat and bald as [some male sportscasters], I would not have that job.”</p>
<p>Kim Jones of the NFL Network concurred. “I’ve gotten tweets that the only reason I have a job is because of my looks; I’ve also gotten plenty more tweets that, you know, I’m an unattractive reporter who shouldn’t be on television.”</p>
<p>This highlights <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1080/07393180600933147">the double bind</a> that female sports journalists face: They feel the pressure to look good for the cameras. But then they’re also denigrated by some who say they only have their jobs because of that attractiveness. It’s tough to imagine a handsome male sportscaster having the same charge leveled against him.</p>
<p>And when mistakes get made – as any human is liable to do – the female sports reporter feels like she’s given less leeway than her male counterpart because he doesn’t have to prove that he really belongs there.</p>
<p>As former ESPN anchor Jemele Hill explained to me, whenever she makes an honest error, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The immediate reaction from a still-too-large segment of the public is going to be, ‘That’s why women shouldn’t talk sports.’ Even though most guys that are in [my] position probably would make a similar mistake, but it’s never going to be about their competence. It’s never going to be about their gender, where it will be for me.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279230/original/file-20190612-32351-lpopn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279230/original/file-20190612-32351-lpopn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279230/original/file-20190612-32351-lpopn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279230/original/file-20190612-32351-lpopn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279230/original/file-20190612-32351-lpopn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279230/original/file-20190612-32351-lpopn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/279230/original/file-20190612-32351-lpopn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Journalist Jemele Hill speaks on stage during the 2017 Hashtag Sports Conference in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Hashtag-Sports-Conference-Day-Two/321d9b1db7164f3ebd2228d67cf2890e/16/0">Steve Luciano/AP Images for Hashtag Sports</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2016, an award-winning <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tU-D-m2JY8">public service announcement</a> featured male fans reading actual tweets that had been directed at prominent female sportscasters. </p>
<p>“I hope you get raped again,” one read. Another: “One of the players should beat you to death with their hockey stick like the whore you are.”</p>
<p>One of those targeted on social media, Chicago sports talk radio host Julie DiCaro, weighed in poignantly this past April. </p>
<p>“It always seems to come down to this idea that men have a proprietary interest in sports that women don’t have,” <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/stevens/ct-life-stevens-tuesday-stephen-moore-keep-women-out-of-sports-0423-story.html">she told The Chicago Tribune</a>. “As if we aren’t the daughters of Title IX. As if some of my earliest memories aren’t sitting on my dad’s lap watching the Bears and Cubs. … Sports belong to all of us.”</p>
<p>They should. They just don’t – yet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Serazio does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Female athletes barely receive more attention than horses and dogs. And if you’re a woman who wants to become a sports journalist, you should steel yourself for some social media venom.Michael Serazio, Associate Professor of Communication, Boston CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1152142019-04-10T02:08:09Z2019-04-10T02:08:09ZA country can never be too rich, too beautiful or too full of people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268484/original/file-20190409-2927-1qy0s7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trump isn’t the first to think a country can be full.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/large-group-people-seen-above-gathered-286867178?src=WFmmHaJjt1a_TdP-UPwxpA-1-4">Arthimedes/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Our Country is FULL!” U.S. President Donald Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1115057524770844672">recently tweeted</a>.</p>
<p>He was referring to immigrants, but the rhetorical tweet begs the question: Can a country ever be full?</p>
<p>Economists <a href="http://businessmacroeconomics.com/">like me have been</a> arguing for centuries about the question but also a closely related one: Is a growing population good or bad? </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1115057524770844672"}"></div></p>
<h2>A country’s ‘carrying capacity’</h2>
<p>The first economist to suggest there were limits to how many inhabitants a country could support was Thomas Malthus, who wrote his most famous work, “<a href="https://www.econlib.org/library/Malthus/malPop.html">An Essay on the Principle of Population</a>,” in 1798.</p>
<p>Malthus believed that each country had a “carrying capacity,” a maximum number of people it can support. When the population is above its carrying capacity, it is full.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=733&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268485/original/file-20190409-2905-5vkx1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Malthus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus#/media/File:Thomas_Robert_Malthus_Wellcome_L0069037_-crop.jpg">John Linnell/Welcome Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/carrying-capacity">Carrying capacity</a> is based on environmental factors, such as the amount of food resources that can be grown on land or harvested from the sea. If Malthus were alive today, he would point out there is a fixed amount of oil in the Earth and a <a href="https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2014/Highlights_Farms_and_Farmland.pdf">fixed amount of farmland</a> to grow crops. Sooner or later the <a href="https://peakoilbarrel.com/what-is-peak-oil/">oil will run out</a>, and if population grows without bound, there will not be enough food to feed everyone.</p>
<p>Malthus’ predictions about what happens after a country rises above its carrying capacity were dire: Disease, famine and wars break out to bring the population back down to a sustainable level. In simple terms, Malthus’ theory was that the population in a country cannot grow indefinitely. Death will constrain it.</p>
<p>This harsh conclusion is one of the reasons people began calling economics the “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dismalscience.asp">dismal science</a>.”</p>
<p>Another doomsayer, though not an economist, is author Jared Diamond, whose popular book “<a href="http://www.jareddiamond.org/Jared_Diamond/Collapse.html">Collapse</a>” showed numerous times in history when population growth led to environmental damage that destroyed a society. The damage occurred because ever-increasing population forced people to move onto marginal or unsafe lands. </p>
<p>Supporters of Diamond’s ideas point out the problems that occur as an ever-growing population builds homes, businesses and farms <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2019-03-19/historic-midwest-flooding-destroys-homes-blamed-for-3-deaths">in flood zones</a> and seeks shelter in places like the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/06/08/lava-hawaii-volcano-has-destroyed-600-homes-mayor-says/684158002/">sides of active volcanoes</a>.</p>
<h2>The more, the wealthier</h2>
<p>Many other economists hold the opposite view and argue population growth fosters economic progress, which means an ever-growing amount of goods and services.</p>
<p>Some of the early work was done in the 1990s by the late <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/5941.html">Julian Simon</a>. He stressed the idea that a growing population is advantageous because it means more researchers, inventors, thinkers, writers and creative people contributing to economic growth.</p>
<p>These kinds of ideas were expanded by people like Harvard development economist <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2118405">Michael Kremer</a>, who suggested it takes a critical mass of people for advanced societies to develop. Societies with high population densities are the most dynamic and most productive, while societies with low densities are not.</p>
<p>The reason why large populations are good is straightforward. Few ideas come from people who are isolated. Numerous people who are together in close proximity produce more ideas because they learn from each other and compete.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.economist.com/free-exchange/2010/12/23/growth-is-good">Proponents of population growth</a> <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/features/population-growth-offers-huge-benefits-324002.html">point out</a> most of the new ideas and products come from cities like New York City, London and Paris. The places brimming with ideas are dense, crowded major urban centers teeming with people. These major cities <a href="https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2015/03/magnet-cities.pdf">act as a magnet for people</a> with talent who are then able to thrive.</p>
<h2>Far from full</h2>
<p>When Malthus kicked off the debate over population, the U.S. had about 4 million people. Today the U.S. has almost <a href="https://www.census.gov/popclock/">330 million</a>.</p>
<p>This dramatic growth has caused neither collapse nor devastation in the U.S.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, economists, politicians and others will continue to worry that sooner or later that population growth will outstrip the ability of humans to invent ways to sustain it. </p>
<p>My personal belief, after traveling <a href="https://u.osu.edu/zagorsky.1/2014/08/07/capsule/">to exceptionally dense cities</a> and many <a href="http://blogs.bu.edu/zagorsky/">rural areas of America</a>, is that the U.S. is not close to full and that barring immigrants will only <a href="https://theconversation.com/want-a-stronger-economy-give-immigrants-a-warm-welcome-73264">stymie economic growth</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115214/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay L. Zagorsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When President Trump declared the US full, little did he know he was wading into a centuries-old economic debate.Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior lecturer, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/952902018-05-07T20:10:17Z2018-05-07T20:10:17ZTweet all about it – people in parks feel more positive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216802/original/file-20180430-135817-100jub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C70%2C3581%2C1785&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Being in a park tends to make people feel more positive, although the time of day and the season also affect their moods.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-woman-use-mobile-phone-countryside-1073482613?src=csbOCN4JjkFr3qRhpSDxHA-2-3">leungchopan/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People in parks are more positive, and around areas like major transport hubs more negative, according to our analysis of 2.2 million tweets in Melbourne.</p>
<p><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/limkwanhui/publications/2018-WWW-greenspaceStudy.pdf">Our research</a> combines social media, such as Twitter, and big data analytics, tied to real time and place, to develop understanding of the well-being benefits of city parks. <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/limkwanhui/publications/2018-WWW-greenspaceStudy.pdf">The analysis</a> shows that tweets in parks contain more positive content (and less negativity) than in built-up areas. For built-up areas in general, negativity is often associated with major transport hubs, perhaps unsurprisingly, and residential areas.</p>
<p>Around the world we are seeking to improve the <a href="https://www.healthybydesignsa.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Green-Spaces-Evidence-Review-FINAL_website.pdf">well-being of people living in cities</a>. One way we do this is by providing public access to natural green spaces such as parks. But how do we assess the benefits and identify which parks, and which elements of a park, best promote well-being?</p>
<p>To date, researchers have examined the well-being benefits of parks using intrusive questionnaires, interviews and physiological <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204611003665">tests</a> (e.g. skin conductance, heart rate). We now have <a href="https://networkedsociety.unimelb.edu.au/research/projects/2016/urban-green-spaces/social-networks-urban-green-spaces">technology</a>, including smartphones, apps and social media posts, that we can use to observe these benefits in detail, across very large scales. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216984/original/file-20180501-135848-e8w70c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216984/original/file-20180501-135848-e8w70c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216984/original/file-20180501-135848-e8w70c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216984/original/file-20180501-135848-e8w70c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216984/original/file-20180501-135848-e8w70c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216984/original/file-20180501-135848-e8w70c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216984/original/file-20180501-135848-e8w70c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216984/original/file-20180501-135848-e8w70c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A lot of people send a lot of messages and analysis of these can tell us about the impact of their surroundings on how they feel.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/duncanh1/9546522671">Dun.can/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our findings add to the evidence that parks are important for creating smarter, healthier and more liveable cities. </p>
<h2>How do we measure well-being in parks?</h2>
<p>Hundreds of millions of people around the world use Twitter for updating their family, friends and followers about their daily activities, thoughts and feelings. People sometimes post public tweets that are linked to the location they are sending from. The words in each tweet can be analysed for their emotional content (referred to as sentiment).</p>
<p>Sentiment analysis categorises each word as positive, negative or neutral, to give an overall score for each tweet. We averaged tweets across the parks that they were posted from, to give an overall positivity/negativity score for each park. </p>
<p>On average, tweets by people in parks express more joy, anticipation and trust, and lower levels of anger and fear, compared to tweets by people in built-up areas. Being near parks also reduced negativity, but did not affect positivity. </p>
<h2>Do time of day and seasons have an effect?</h2>
<p>Each tweet is tagged with the time it’s posted. Tweet sentiment scores can also be averaged across specific periods, such as hour, day or month. Beyond the general positive effects of parks compared to built-up areas, we found some general patterns that show people tend to be influenced by the time they are tweeting.</p>
<p>Across the day, from lunch to the end of the work day, people tended to express less and less positivity, before bouncing back in the evening. This change seems to mirror general schooling and working life – that is, <a href="http://www.uvm.edu/%7Ecdanfort/press/Science-2011-Miller-1814-5.pdf">how people experience and recover from their work</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216987/original/file-20180501-135844-181844i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216987/original/file-20180501-135844-181844i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216987/original/file-20180501-135844-181844i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216987/original/file-20180501-135844-181844i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216987/original/file-20180501-135844-181844i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216987/original/file-20180501-135844-181844i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216987/original/file-20180501-135844-181844i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216987/original/file-20180501-135844-181844i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spending a warm day off in the park certainly seems to lift people’s mood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnloo/14928176288">John Loo/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similarly, there is a general pattern of people being more positive on weekends than weekdays. While this pattern is similar for both parks and built-up areas, parks seem more positive than built-up areas regardless of the day of week.</p>
<p>Across seasons, from warmer months to cooler months, people tended to express more positivity in parks. Positivity seems to improve steadily from May to December, as we move from winter to summer in Australia. In contrast, built-up areas do not seem to show any clear patterns. </p>
<h2>Why are people happier in parks?</h2>
<p>People <a href="http://parkrxamerica.org/pdf/Hartig-2016-Living-in-cities-naturally.pdf">might be happier in parks</a> for several reasons. Parks can help them to recover from the stress and mental strain of living in cities, and provide a place to exercise, meet other people, or host special events such as music festivals.</p>
<p>We need to do more research to help us understand the effect of park features. For example, being green with lots of vegetation is likely related to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilia_hypothesis">biophilia</a>. And how do the effects differ when parks are used as settings for particular activities? </p>
<p>We know parks are great places, but we are still working out exactly why they’re great. Knowing more about this will help us make even better parks. Making the best use of public open space and green space is <a href="http://indicators.report/indicators/i-70/">really important</a> as more and more people live in cities around the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95290/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kwan Hui Lim receives funding from Melbourne Networked Society Institute and Defence Science and Technology Group.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dave Kendal receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the federal Department of the Environment, the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, the City of Melbourne, the Melbourne Networked Society Institute and the Glenelg Hopkins and Corangamite Catchment Management Authorities. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Lee receives funding from the the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program through the Clean Air and Urban Landscapes Hub, the Melbourne Networked Society Institute, Horticulture Innovation Australia, the Upper Stony Creek Transformation Consortium, and Parks Victoria. </span></em></p>The positive mood of tweets varies with time of day and season, but it’s consistently higher in parks than in built-up areas, where people are more likely to express anger and fears.Kwan Hui Lim, Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneDave Kendal, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management, University of TasmaniaKate Lee, Research fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/875992017-11-23T19:10:29Z2017-11-23T19:10:29ZWe learn from our mistakes: how to make better predictions from tweets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/195992/original/file-20171123-6072-hcjpri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How do we know that what people tweet is what they really think?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/AlesiaKan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Social media is viewed as a potential goldmine of information. The key is to work out how to mine this abundant source of public sentiment. </p>
<p>Linking social media sentiment with human behaviour is a relatively new and evolving field of study. It has a lot of potential – we successfully used it to <a href="https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/news/2016/11/30/big-data-analytics-nostradamus-of-the-21st-century/">predict the result of the 2016 US election</a>. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-media-study-points-to-a-close-result-in-the-same-sex-marriage-vote-84436">we got it wrong</a> with Australia’s same-sex marriage survey, and here’s why.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-numbers-say-and-dont-say-in-the-same-sex-marriage-survey-87096">What the numbers say (and don't say) in the same-sex marriage survey</a>
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<h2>We crunched the numbers</h2>
<p>We carefully <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-media-study-points-to-a-close-result-in-the-same-sex-marriage-vote-84436">sampled the sentiment</a> of 458,565 anonymised Australian tweets that made reference to same-sex marriage. We found 72% overall support for Yes. This was averaged out from the whole month of October. </p>
<p>But we noticed that some Twitter accounts had sent more than 1,000 tweets related to same-sex marriage. The number of unique users was down to just 207,287. </p>
<p>It seemed wise to minimise the influence of these bulk tweets because by the time they were sent, many of the votes had already been cast. Discounting the influence of the bulk tweets brought Yes support down to 57%.</p>
<p>Once we adjusted another 8% for the under-representation of the over-55 demographic in the Twitter sample, we concluded that the overall support for Yes was down to 49%. </p>
<h2>With the benefit of hindsight</h2>
<p>In previous successful trials we had assumed that all tweets are equal. If we had made the same assumption in this trial and did everything else the same, then – re-crunching the numbers – our prediction for Yes would have been 59.08%, which is close to the <a href="https://marriagesurvey.abs.gov.au/results/">official result of 61.6%</a>.</p>
<p>We made the incorrect assumption that the bulk tweeting would not be influential because the voting was spread across several weeks. </p>
<p>In our previous <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-media-study-points-to-a-close-result-in-the-same-sex-marriage-vote-84436">article</a> we acknowledged the influence of bulk tweeting. We said that campaign tweets would have influenced public opinion to some degree, but we anticipated it to a much lower extent.</p>
<p>So there are lessons to be learned from this for any future analysis.</p>
<h2>Success stories</h2>
<p>So far we’ve talked mainly about when we were wrong and why. But what about those times when the Big Data and Smart Analytics Lab got it right? </p>
<p>The Lab correctly <a href="https://app.secure.griffith.edu.au/news/2016/11/30/big-data-analytics-nostradamus-of-the-21st-century/">predicted</a> no less than 48 out of 50 US State elections held at the same time as the 2016 presidential election, which we also correctly called. </p>
<p>We called the Coalition’s win in the 2016 Australian federal election. And our method gave a clear indication that “Brexit” would prevail over “Bremain”, contrary to the polling before Britain’s referendum on European Union membership.</p>
<p>In all of these cases, we were sampling the social media sentiment leading up to a specific election day when all would be decided. The election result is a snapshot of how the voters feel on that day. </p>
<p>With the same-sex marriage survey, the voting was spread across several weeks, making it difficult to know what proportion of the vote took place on a particular day or even week. </p>
<p>Even with this uncertainty, it was possible to make reasonably accurate predictions provided that the underlying assumptions are correct, such as all tweets being equally influential.</p>
<h2>Twitter isn’t the only source</h2>
<p>With <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/">328 million</a> active users worldwide, and many more inactive users who nonetheless read the tweets of others, Twitter is an excellent source of information on people’s views and intentions. </p>
<p>But it is good to have multiple sources of data when doing big data analytics. </p>
<p>In diverse projects, ranging from tourist satisfaction to environmental changes, the Big Data and Smart Analytics Lab uses combinations of Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, public Facebook pages, and even the Chinese social media platform Weibo. It is all grist to the mill. </p>
<p>Facebook is by far the dominant social media channel in the world. Only public pages are accessed by our analytics. But with <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/">two billion</a> users and growing, we still have plenty of data to work with. </p>
<p>Twitter has evolved into a more news- and opinion-oriented channel, with people sharing newsworthy items with like-minded others. Celebrities and politicians use it as a direct channel to their audience, bypassing the established media channels altogether. </p>
<p>Brevity of tweets was enforced by a 140-character limit until recently, when the length restriction was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/technology/twitter-280-characters.html">doubled</a> to 280 characters. The extra characters make tweets an even richer source of information for data mining.</p>
<h2>The power of social media</h2>
<p>The fact remains that people say things on social media that they would not say out loud. Many trolls and hecklers in the online world turn out to be mild-mannered individuals in the real world. It can be surprising.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-same-sex-marriage-survey-got-us-talking-about-and-trusting-data-87508">How the same-sex marriage survey got us talking about – and trusting – data</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Whose opinion is more interesting to the analyst? Is it the social persona who has responsibilities to the community and is generally polite? Or is it the private persona who only vents their true feelings to their closest confidants and on social media. </p>
<p>Both are interesting, but arguably it is the latter whose opinion determine the outcome of social issues.</p>
<p>The lesson to be learned from our error with same-sex marriage survey is that every social media post counts. Social media is indeed a powerfully democratising force.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87599/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bela Stantic receives funding from: The National Environmental Science Programme (NESP), Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service Private Practice Trust Fund, Sustainable Built Environment - National Research Centre, Queensland Cancer Fund, Australian Institute of Sport, City of Gold Coast and Association of Marine Park Tourism Operators (AMPTO).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Tuffley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Twitter can be a useful tool in trying to predict what people think on an issue. So why did a study of almost half a million tweets on the same-sex marriage survey get it wrong?David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics and SocioTechnical Studies, School of ICT., Griffith UniversityBela Stantic, Professor, Director of Big data and smart analytics lab, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/848032017-09-27T14:17:02Z2017-09-27T14:17:02ZTwitter’s new 280-character limit trial is a risky strategy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187831/original/file-20170927-24225-wi9otj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/kiev-ukraine-august-10-2015-twitter-314369711?src=jjt4VznrpfWppLNf5-ThWA-2-20"> tanuha2001/shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Social media site Twitter is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41408798">trialling longer, 280-character limits</a> to help users “easily express themselves”. At first glance this announcement might seem like nothing but a nice new feature. But this new step exemplifies two ways in which Twitter continues to tread <a href="https://theconversation.com/livening-things-up-can-twitter-stay-afloat-through-new-innovations-54579">a fine line</a> between success and failure.</p>
<p>Firstly, what this move demonstrates is how difficult it is to get the balance between being distinctive and having to move closer to the features that rivals offer. Secondly, the new measure heaps new problems onto an unstable business model that keeps Twitter <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-results-metrics/twitter-numbers-paint-grim-profitability-picture-idUSKBN15O2ZB">unprofitable</a>.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/product/2017/Giving-you-more-characters-to-express-yourself.html">the announcement</a> of more space for longer messages, Aliza Rosen, Twitter’s product manager and Ikuhiro Ihara, the senior software engineer, argued that some languages need more characters to express a message than others. Confident that most users won’t have a basis for comparison, they proposed that giving a larger space for messages to some English-language users will stem frustration at the traditional limit. But their post immediately contains a giveaway contradiction:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Twitter is about brevity. It’s what makes it such a great way to see what’s happening. Tweets get right to the point with the information or thoughts that matter. That is something we will never change.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This contradiction is at the heart of the dilemma that all social media platforms face. If successful in attracting users, they have to offer something distinctive. Yet as new rivals enter the scene they have to innovate and this usually means adopting features others have borrowed. It’s easy to forget that, for some years after its roll-out in 2006, it was impossible to include an image with a tweet – you could only link to a picture hosted elsewhere and you had to be careful over how long URLs were.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"912783930431905797"}"></div></p>
<p>But as people became used to the greater flexibility of Facebook and then Instagram, Twitter too had to offer opportunities to include images, links and videos. The truth is that the 140 character limitation has long gone. </p>
<p>Nevertheless Twitter does still offer a specific format, appealing to many. You can compose a brief message accompanied by links, images and a short video and broadcast it to other Twitter users. You don’t have to regulate “friends” and although you might not like all the reactions and responses you get, you might succeed in getting your post across to the audience you want. </p>
<p>All these features account for why Twitter’s business model is inherently unstable. It costs a great deal of money to provide the services that people sign up for for free, yet their willingness to accept advertisements and paid-for content is limited. People turn away from Twitter if their feed includes too much stuff they haven’t chosen. Therefore, Twitter has never yet been able to earn sufficient income to pay its expenses. Profitability is still deferred, as it always has been. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"912784057863245824"}"></div></p>
<h2>Twitter and Trump</h2>
<p>Two years ago, teaching a course called Understanding Media, I used to argue that Twitter was in a precarious position. Then Trump happened. One advantage Twitter has had since its launch is that it has always been talked about in the media, from sports to business, from TV to online newspapers. Nevertheless the new president’s fondness for this specific platform could not have been predicted and has led to an exponential growth in stories that mention Twitter. But it hasn’t been enough to correct the fundamental problems. </p>
<p>As technology journalist Charles Arthur <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/09/twitter-not-even-donald-trump-can-help-it-make-a-profit">wrote</a> in the Guardian in February, not even the best efforts of Donald Trump can pull Twitter out of its dive. The company’s fourth-quarter results showed a loss of $167m (compared with $90m a year before) on flat revenues of $638m, with no clear path to profit. This despite the fact that the US president’s frequent outbursts helped increase the number of users by 2m to 319m.</p>
<p>Twitter exists in a highly competitive world, always glancing over its shoulder at competitors such as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-39947442">Sina Weibo</a>, which earlier this year claimed to have overtaken Twitter in numbers of users. Sina Weibo offers more space than Twitter in each post. But Twitter’s new announcement, as if playing catch up, can do little if anything to address the fundamental challenges the social media platform continues to face.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Gillen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Twitter is trialing 280-character tweet limits - but will it help its flawed business model?Julia Gillen, Senior Lecturer in Digital Literacies, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/780042017-06-01T14:02:14Z2017-06-01T14:02:14ZIdi Amin and Donald Trump - strong men with unlikely parallels<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/171611/original/file-20170531-25704-18r3x0n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US President Donald Trump and African dictator Idi Amin - different, but the same.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA and Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>US President Donald Trump’s norm-breaking campaign and early reign has been <a href="http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/can-history-prepare-us-for-the-trump-presidency-214676">compared</a> to <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/american-authoritarianism-under-donald-trump/495263/">several</a> other divisive historical figures, especially previous American presidents.</p>
<p>But when it comes to the style in which he communicates, there’s an uncanny resemblance to a notorious African dictator from the 1970s. For those that lived during Idi Amin’s vicious reign in Uganda between 1971 and 1979, there are clear echoes four decades later in Trump’s speeches and press conferences, or when he fires off his notorious tweets.</p>
<p>Let me say up front, Trump, who was democratically elected, can in no way be compared to Amin when it comes to how the so-called “Butcher of Uganda” came to power or the brutal way he dealt with dissent during his eight-year regime. One of the most barbaric military dictators in post-independence Africa, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/aug/18/guardianobituaries">the death toll of his own citizens</a> under his rule, is put at 500,000.</p>
<p>The comparison I am looking at is the similarity of styles and tone of communication. Even though Trump and Amin are from completely different eras with different modes of communication, there are clear parallels between the two telegenic men.</p>
<h2>Decrees with flourish</h2>
<p>Amin’s numerous decrees were announced on radio and television and carried in newspapers with flourish. One such decree was the expulsion of the Asian/Indian community from Uganda.</p>
<p>In front of international television cameras and newspaper journalists Amin accused the Indians of being “smugglers who carried five passports”. He blamed Britain for bringing them to Uganda during the colonial rule. Amin <a href="http://www.itnsource.com/en/specials/compilation/S18021001/">claimed</a> that the expulsion decision was taken in the national economic interests of Uganda:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I took this decision for the economy of Uganda and I must make sure that every Ugandan gets the fruit of independence. I want to see the whole Kampala street is not full of Indians.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Fast forward 44 years. At a campaign rally Trump promised to deport illegal immigrants from Mexico, some of whom he <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/31/politics/donald-trump-mexico-statements/">called</a> “rapists”. Trump also <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trumps-border-wall-an-annotated-timeline_us_58b5f363e4b02f3f81e44d7b">announced</a> that he was going to build a wall barring them from entry into the United States which Mexico was going to pay for.</p>
<p>“Mark my words,” he said. Afterwards he proclaimed that he “loved Hispanics”. </p>
<p>In similar style Amin said “it’s not my responsibility to offer them (expelled British Asians) transit camps! The British High Commissioner is here and it is his responsibility”. Remarking afterwards that the British “are my great friends”.</p>
<p>For Amin’s Uganda, it was a devastating decision. The expelled Asians/Indians were the entrepreneurs, bankers, professional class who had formed the country’s middle class since colonial times. Six months after their departure the country’s hitherto promising African economy spiralled into recession.</p>
<p>Trump’s America may not suffer the expulsion of unwanted foreigners but its regional entrepreneurs such as potato and vegetable growers will suffer from the absence of cheap available labour from across the border in Mexico. </p>
<h2>Impulsive use of technology</h2>
<p>The two presidents have similarities in their impulsive use of quick communication technology. Trump is a compulsive tweeter while Amin loved dispatching telegrams.</p>
<p>Amin telegraphed disgraced American President Richard Nixon wishing him a “quick recovery from Watergate” and to Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere, his erstwhile foe, a peculiar message in lieu of peace talks at the height of a war between the true countries:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you were a woman I would have married you … although your head is full of grey hairs. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were even more <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/world/idi-amin-murderous-and-erratic-ruler-of-uganda-in-the-70-s-dies-in-exile.html">bizarre ones</a> to the Queen of England, saying he expected her to send him “her 25-year-old knickers” in celebration of the silver anniversary of her coronation. There was an offer of assistance to Edward Heath, the British Prime Minister to save the British economy, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you would let me know the exact position of the mess. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A Trump <a href="http://www.fooddemocracynow.org/blog/2015/oct/23/trump-insults-iowa-voters-takes-monsanto-immediately-caves-big-ag-farm-lobby">tweet</a> to Iowa voters who voted against him in the primaries had similar condescending tones:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Too much Monsanto in the corn creates issues in the brain?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It was later <a href="http://time.com/4084000/trump-iowa-corn/">deleted</a>.</p>
<p>There was another <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/859601184285491201?lang=en">tweet</a> about James Comey, the FBI Director he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/james-comey-fired-fbi.html?_r=0">fired</a>:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"859601184285491201"}"></div></p>
<p>And then there’s this tweet about a topic that has often occupied his mind, namely his predecessor Barack Obama’s legacy:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"853942936337350656"}"></div></p>
<h2>Being fired on television</h2>
<p>Amin loved <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Nakasero-WodOkello-Lawoko-ebook/dp/B00GFSQBQI">firing his officials</a> on radio and television. A minister of culture, Yekosofat Engur, attended a public function as guest of honour not knowing that his junior had just been appointed in his place on Uganda’s broadcast media.</p>
<p>Former FBI chief Comey learned in a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/10/james-comey-fired-ousted-fbi-director-learned-was-fired-from-tv.html">similar fashion</a> of his fate. He learned of his firing while addressing agents at a field office in Los Angeles – breaking news flashes on television of Trump sacking him, was the first Comey heard of it. </p>
<p>There are also parallels in their sabre rattling. Amin threatened to invade Israel, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul6uvAwuLIg&t=512s">not holding back</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If am to prepare the war against Israel completely, I don’t want very many Army, Air force and Navy, just very few and strike inside… </p>
</blockquote>
<p>“I love war,” Trump <a href="http://www.expressnews.com/news/news_columnists/brian_chasnoff/article/Trump-I-love-war-6630963.php">declared</a> his passion for violence during a campaign speech in Iowa in late 2015. He added:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’m good at war. I’ve had a lot of wars of my own. I’m really good at war. I love war in a certain way, but only when we win.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Low opinion</h2>
<p>The two presidents both have a low opinion of women and not shy to express that. Amin remarked that he was a “good marksman” (with women) while showing off his numerous children. He had four wives and more than 30 children.</p>
<p>Trump has had a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/us/politics/donald-trump-women.html">long trial of sexist comments</a> such as this one:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know, it doesn’t really matter what [the media] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass …</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What the two share most is their sense of self importance. </p>
<p>In 1977, after Britain broke diplomatic relations with his regime, Amin <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/aug/18/guardianobituaries">declared</a> he had beaten the British. He titled himself “Conqueror of the British Empire”, short for, “His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Alhaji Dr Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE”. He said he would be happy to accept the Scots “secret wish” to have him as their monarch, hence the Hollywood movie title “The Last King of Scotland”.</p>
<p>Amin also wrenched a Doctorate of Law from Uganda’s Makerere University and henceforth considered himself in the same league with medical doctors.</p>
<p>As Salon <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/01/30/im-like-a-smart-person-forget-inauguration-size-and-business-success-trumps-biggest-lie-is-about-his-intelligence_partner/">wrote</a>, the only two words former reality show host Trump has uttered more frequently than “you’re fired” are “I’m smart”. He said about Wharton, the University of Pennsylvania’s business school:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Look, I went to the best school, I was a good student and all of this stuff. I mean, I’m a smart person.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They both share a passion for control and love to be loved. The New Yorker’s Jeff Seshol <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-kind-of-loyalty-does-a-president-need">reckons</a> that Trump’s chief complaint about his own yes-men seems to be that they don’t say yes energetically enough. </p>
<p>It’s easier when you’re a dictator. Amin <a href="http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1227873/amin-talked-ministers-pupils">was clear</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As minister, governor, high-ranking people and the people of the country, they must love their leader. This is the point number one.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Turning into Amin</h2>
<p>Respected East African commentator Charles Onyango Obbo <a href="http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/OpEd/comment/434750-3940282-view-printVersion-bc1se6z/index.html">believes</a> that, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The genius of Trump is that he understands what adept guerrilla leaders figured out ages ago – do that which the opponent thinks is impossible or so unthinkable, they have not planned how to defend it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The same went for Amin who for a long time was considered a comic buffoon while he terrorised a whole country and fanned international terrorism. </p>
<p>Some may think it’s alarmist, but Onyango Obbo has warned that with all the similarities,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Trump – or indeed any leader in an “advanced” democracy – can turn into an Idi Amin.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78004/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Ssenoga does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some may say it’s far fetched to compare a 1970s African dictator with the President of the United States. But the similarities between Idi Amin and Donald Trump are quite startling.Geoffrey Ssenoga, Lecturer of Mass Communications, Uganda Christian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722692017-02-06T19:13:36Z2017-02-06T19:13:36ZTrump, the wannabe king ruling by ‘twiat’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155395/original/image-20170202-1657-cdeeru.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Donald Trump's reinvention of the royal fiat as rule-by-tweet, or 'twiat', is anti-democratic and needs to be resisted.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump?lang=en">Twitter</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> with the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Just weeks after his inauguration as US president, it is clear that Donald Trump is making a further bold claim on power, one that goes beyond the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-executive-orders-and-what-force-do-they-have-in-us-politics-72088">executive orders</a> that are rightly drawing so much attention. He is reinventing the royal fiat by novel means: the rule-by-tweet, or “twiat”. This move is not an extension of popular democracy, but its enemy, and it needs to be resisted.</p>
<p>We are becoming used to Trump’s new way not just of sustaining a political campaign, but of making policy. We wake up to news of another <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/mexico-president-donald-trump-enrique-pena-nieto-border-wall/">state</a>, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/toyota-12bn-value-plummet-shares-stock-market-donald-trump-tweet-move-mexico-tax-a7512096.html">corporation</a>, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-trump-berkeley-20170202-story.html">institution</a> or <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/01/26/511781106/trump-chelsea-manning-an-ungrateful-traitor-for-criticizing-obama">individual</a> caught in the crossfire of his tweets. Corporations and investors are setting up “Twitter Response Units” and “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/01/06/app-warns-investors-donald-trump-tweets-companies/">Trump Triggers</a>” in case the next tweet is aimed at them. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"827118012784373760"}"></div></p>
<p>The process is so alien to the ways of making policy that have evolved over decades in complex democracies that it is tempting to dismiss it as just funny or naive. But that would be a huge mistake.</p>
<p>A tweet of Trump’s opinion at any moment on a particular issue is just that: an expression of the temporary opinion of one person, albeit one with his hands on more power-levers than almost any other person in the world. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155108/original/image-20170201-12678-1gpou3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155108/original/image-20170201-12678-1gpou3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155108/original/image-20170201-12678-1gpou3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155108/original/image-20170201-12678-1gpou3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155108/original/image-20170201-12678-1gpou3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155108/original/image-20170201-12678-1gpou3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155108/original/image-20170201-12678-1gpou3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trump’s opinions at any moment are subject to change.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sasha Kimel/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such expressions matter, for sure, to <a href="https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump?lang=en">Trump’s Twitter followers</a>. But, although one might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, they do not (at 23 million) constitute a significant proportion of the world’s population, or even a large proportion of the US population.</p>
<h2>The king holds court</h2>
<p>A Trump tweet only becomes news if it is reported as news. And it only starts to become policy if those who interpret policy, including the media, start to <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/world/asia/china-weighs-response-to-donald-trumps-tweet-storm-20161205-gt4347">treat this news as policy</a>. Until then, the Trump tweet remains at most a claim on power. </p>
<p>But once key institutions treat it as if were already an enactment of power, it quickly becomes one. Worse, it inaugurates a whole new way of doing power whose compatibility with democracy and global peace is questionable.</p>
<p>Imagine you are a diplomat, trying to schedule a meeting for yourself, or your political master, with Trump in a few weeks’ time. Is it sensible for you to rely on the confidentiality of the meeting? Could a poorly chosen phrase or look – or indeed your most carefully argued reasoning – provoke a tweet that publicly mocks your whole strategy?</p>
<p>How do you deal with a figure who claims the power to broadcast on his own terms his gut reactions to whatever you say or propose? Yes, you can tweet back, but that is already to give up on the quiet space of discussion that was once diplomacy’s refuge.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"827002559122567168"}"></div></p>
<p>The impact of rule-by-tweet is potentially profound: above all, on policy, whether global or domestic, legal or commercial. A new type of power is being claimed and, it seems, recognised: the power, by an individual’s say-so, to make things happen, the twiat. Just the sort of power that <a href="https://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-glorious-revolution-of-1688/">revolutions</a> were <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/201524045/The-American-Revolution-and-the-Early-Federal-Republic">fought</a> to abolish.</p>
<p>If Trump is the putative Tweet King, who are his courtiers? Surely they’re the mainstream media institutions that regularly report Trump’s tweets as if they were policy. </p>
<p>If a medieval king’s courtiers refused to pass on his word to the wider world, its impact changed. While courtiers could be replaced overnight, contemporary media corporations cannot (for now at least). So why should the media act as if they were Trump’s courtiers?</p>
<p>We must not underestimate the short-term pressure on media corporations to conform to Trump’s claim on power. For sure, there will be an audience if they report Trump’s tweets, and their financial need to grab audiences wherever they can has never been greater. </p>
<p>But, if news values still mean something, they refer not only to financial imperatives, but to what should count as news. And norms about news must have some relation to what passes for acceptable in a democracy rather than an autocracy.</p>
<h2>Why is the ‘twiat’ anti-democratic?</h2>
<p>Some might say: Trump’s tweets are just the new way of doing democracy, “get with the program” (in the words of Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer). But, as the grim history of mid-20th-century Europe shows, authoritarian grabs on power only ever worked because their anti-democratic means were accepted by those around them as a novel way of “doing democracy”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KVVTTFKRzAY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">White House spokesman Sean Spicer says officials must ‘get with the program’ or go.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The “twiat” is anti-democratic for two reasons. First, it claims a power (to name individuals, pronounce policy, and condemn actions) against which there is no redress. Its work is done once uttered from the mouth of the “king”.</p>
<p>Second, and more subtly, allowing such power back into political decision-making undermines the slower, more inclusive forms of discussion and reflection that gives modern political democratic institutions their purpose and purchase in the first place.</p>
<p>Trump’s claim to a new form of charismatic power through Twitter is, in part, the flip-side of the damaged legitimacy of today’s democratic process. But, instead of curing that problem, it closes the door on it. The presidential tweeting ushers us into a new space that is no longer recognisable as democratic: a space where complex policy becomes not just too difficult but unnecessary, although its substitutes can still be tweeted.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/P0sPidpwYCA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Is Trump’s Twitter feed bypassing dishonest media or bypassing the democratic process?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Can anything be done to stop this? A good start would be to stop reporting the tweets of our would-be Twitter king as if they were news, let alone policy. </p>
<p>Let Trump’s tweets have no more claim on democracy’s attention than the changing opinions of any other powerful figure. Refuse the additional claim to power that Trump’s Twitter stream represents. </p>
<p>Fail to refuse that claim, and all of us risk accepting by default a new form of rule that undermines the restraints on power on which both democracy and media freedoms, in the long term, depend.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72269/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nick Couldry does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Donald Trump is reinventing the royal fiat by novel means: the rule-by-tweet, or ‘twiat’. This move is not an extension of popular democracy, but its enemy, and it needs to be resisted.Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, London School of Economics and Political ScienceLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/719732017-02-01T02:45:40Z2017-02-01T02:45:40ZDonald Trump’s tweets are now presidential records<p>By many accounts, Donald Trump’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-tweeted-himself-into-the-white-house-68561">bold use of Twitter</a> helped him get the attention and votes necessary to win a presidential race few initially thought he could. Given Trump’s affinity for the social media platform, it was unsurprising that tweets began streaming from his @realDonaldTrump account before noon on Inauguration Day. </p>
<p>Trump’s first tweets as president included snippets of his inauguration speech, simple thank yous to supporters and a short clip of the Freedom Ball dance he shared with his wife. Within 24 hours, however, the new president stumbled up against complicated federal law when he (or one of his staff) tweeted, then deleted, that Trump was “honered” to serve as president.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155047/original/image-20170131-3251-kivtwe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155047/original/image-20170131-3251-kivtwe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155047/original/image-20170131-3251-kivtwe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155047/original/image-20170131-3251-kivtwe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155047/original/image-20170131-3251-kivtwe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155047/original/image-20170131-3251-kivtwe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155047/original/image-20170131-3251-kivtwe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/155047/original/image-20170131-3251-kivtwe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Screenshot of @realDonaldTrump’s tweet that was subsequently deleted.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Shortly afterward, a second tweet was posted that corrected the misspelling, though it, too, was soon deleted.</p>
<p>Many Twitter users tweak their tweets every day with little to no fanfare. When the president of the United States does it, however, there can be legal consequences. There are two important questions to answer about Trump’s tweets: Are they official presidential records under the law? And, are deletions or alterations of those tweets legal?</p>
<p>As a scholar who has researched <a href="https://theconversation.com/donald-trump-tweeted-himself-into-the-white-house-68561">Twitter’s impact on the 2016 presidential election</a>, I believe the answer to the first question must be yes. But even if tweets are part of the official presidential record, meaning deletions are probably not allowed under current law, there may not be much anyone can do to stop Trump from taking down tweets.</p>
<h2>Presidents can’t just clean house</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154584/original/image-20170127-30424-1pa9q4x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154584/original/image-20170127-30424-1pa9q4x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154584/original/image-20170127-30424-1pa9q4x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154584/original/image-20170127-30424-1pa9q4x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=821&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154584/original/image-20170127-30424-1pa9q4x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154584/original/image-20170127-30424-1pa9q4x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154584/original/image-20170127-30424-1pa9q4x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1031&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In the last months of his life, President Garfield famously destroyed many personal and political documents.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the United States, the law gives people a broad right <a href="http://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-right-to-destroy">to destroy things they own</a>. If a private citizen wants to throw away old clothing or shred documents, he generally has the right to do so. This was also <a href="http://openjurist.org/978/f2d/1269/nixon-v-united-states">historically true for many American presidents</a>, who often destroyed diaries, letters and other records. In most cases, presidents who intentionally destroyed their papers did so to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZvwXKFcL-74C&pg=PA130&lpg=PA130&dq=why+presidents+destroyed+presidential+papers+privACY&source=bl&ots=I5F4KrRIYt&sig=-6-IPgvq53scC2s03vo8iM0oiDs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi56_mP2urRAhVn4IMKHQIJCpYQ6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=why%20presidents%20destroyed%20presidential%20papers%20privACY&f=false">protect both their own privacy</a> and that of their professional acquaintances. </p>
<p>This changed, however, <a href="http://escholarship.org/uc/item/84f7437p#page-1">after Richard Nixon’s presidency</a>. Congress created the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/laws/1978-act.html">Presidential Records Act of 1978</a> out of concern that former president Nixon would destroy the tapes that led to his resignation.</p>
<p>The PRA sets <a href="https://www.archives.gov/about/laws/presidential-records.html">strict rules</a> for presidential records created during a president’s term. They include material related to “constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President.” This <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/R40238.pdf">includes records</a> created on electronic platforms like email, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. There is a <a href="http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2917&context=clr">narrow exception</a> that things like diaries, journals or other personal notes don’t need to be opened for review.</p>
<p>Under the law, the federal government must maintain ownership and control of all presidential records, including records created by the president’s staff. Once a president leaves office, all presidential records must be transferred to the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/about/info/whats-an-archivist.html">archivist of the United States</a>, who makes them available to the public over time.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154831/original/image-20170130-7649-xto9p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154831/original/image-20170130-7649-xto9p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154831/original/image-20170130-7649-xto9p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154831/original/image-20170130-7649-xto9p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154831/original/image-20170130-7649-xto9p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154831/original/image-20170130-7649-xto9p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154831/original/image-20170130-7649-xto9p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154831/original/image-20170130-7649-xto9p9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The National Archives is charged with maintaining the presidential records.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/skippy/450215038">Scott</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tweets not so fleeting</h2>
<p>Trump has <a href="http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/01/16/trump-continue-using-personal-twitter-account-realdonaldtrump-president-not-potus">continued to use his @realDonaldTrump account</a> to speak directly “to the people” about issues of national and international importance. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"820785990746963969"}"></div></p>
<p>A U.S. National Archives spokesperson has said that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/01/23/us/politics/ap-us-trump-tweets.html?_r=0">posted tweets are considered presidential records</a>. The National Archives has since requested that the White House <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/press/press-releases/aotus-to-sens-mccaskill-carper.pdf">save deleted or altered tweets</a>, but has not stated a position on whether they are definitely presidential records. I believe the Presidential Records Act should apply, for several reasons. </p>
<p>The PRA does not allow the president to get rid of any presidential records without the written permission of the archivist. And presidential records that have “administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value,” cannot be destroyed at all.</p>
<p>The PRA has been <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.17723/aarc.66.1.8v8063806411716t">unpopular with presidents</a> since its enactment. There is a delicate balance between the <a href="http://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1072&context=cl_pubs">public’s interest</a> in preservation of and access to presidential records and the president’s need for autonomy during his or her term, without needing to worry about the public’s eventual judgment once out of office. Presidents have often <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1229597">used claims of executive privilege</a> to withhold such records from the public, though the archivist would still maintain those with value. Months after 9/11, for example, President George W. Bush issued an executive order that allowed a current or former president to <a href="https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=281020070003092001099006087023114024050069081053008091070113118125006097085107107031021010033037006104035122119115118002086093045011032005017027025108003098029102026037014034078014065090112014025086064000100099028015023031064010118071106104031090081001&EXT=pdf">block public access to presidential records</a> created during his administration. The order also expanded executive privilege, which allows a president and other high-level executive officers to keep information from the public. This was criticized by many as <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-12-10/news/0112100170_1_presidential-records-act-president-bush-presidential-papers">counter to a free democracy</a> built on the public’s access to information.</p>
<h2>For your eyes only?</h2>
<p>Attempts to keep presidential records secret have typically revolved around whether the public should have access to records they have not previously seen. </p>
<p>Because tweets are by their nature public, the typical objections around executive privilege seemingly wouldn’t apply here. Millions of people can see a tweet instantly. Users may also retweet original messages, which can multiply their reach. In addition, Google currently displays <a href="http://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13298/14609">Twitter content prominently in search engine rankings</a>, especially tweets created by users with large followings. At the end of January 2017, @realDonaldTrump had almost 23 million followers, adding <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/donald-trump-interview-brexit-britain-trade-deal-europe-queen-5m0bc2tns">incentive for Trump to keep using the account</a>. (By February 2018, his account had almost 48 million followers.) In the days since the inauguration, the official @POTUS account mostly consists of retweets of @realDonaldTrump.</p>
<p>Tweets are part of the official presidential record. So if Trump’s tweets are deleted or altered, the originals should also be archived. The White House has <a href="https://www.archives.gov/files/press/press-releases/aotus-to-sens-mccaskill-carper.pdf">indicated that they are archiving tweets</a>, but hasn’t said how.</p>
<p>Some sites have begun to <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/politwoops/user/realDonaldTrump">independently archive</a> Trump’s deleted tweets. Among those deleted since the November election are tweets stating that Mexico will reimburse Americans for the “Great Wall” (deleted after 51 seconds), China had stolen a United States Navy research drone (deleted after one hour), and campaigning under an Electoral College system is more difficult than under a majority vote system (deleted after 13 seconds). Tweets like these could cause diplomatic ripple effects. In fact, tweets about Mexico and China have indeed <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/27/politics/mexico-foreign-minister-trump-comments/">provoked responses</a> from both countries. </p>
<p>If a tweet is the catalyst for a lost ally, new policy or other reaction, American history deserves to have a record of it.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154586/original/image-20170127-30413-v3bsxm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154586/original/image-20170127-30413-v3bsxm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154586/original/image-20170127-30413-v3bsxm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154586/original/image-20170127-30413-v3bsxm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154586/original/image-20170127-30413-v3bsxm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154586/original/image-20170127-30413-v3bsxm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/154586/original/image-20170127-30413-v3bsxm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=549&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The official @POTUS Twitter account frequently retweets @realDonaldTrump.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Modernizing the law to keep up with technology</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2015/nr15-23.html">Presidential and Federal Records Act Amendments of 2014</a> may be where Trump runs into trouble. The law, passed to modernize the PRA with respect to electronic records, provides that the president should not use an unofficial “electronic messaging account” for presidential records unless he or she copies or forwards a complete copy to an official account. While there is no specific language regarding social media, past presidents <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-deleted-tweets-violate-presidential-records-act-article-1.2952416">set up auto-archiving</a> so that deleted tweets were also saved. It is unclear whether the Trump administration has done the same. </p>
<p>Courts can review whether any given piece of information should be categorized as a presidential record or not. But, the president <a href="http://www.allcourtdata.com/law/case/citizens-for-responsibility-and-ethics-v-cheney/cw0A5sbC?page=12">has control</a> over “creation, management, and disposal” decisions after that initial categorization, assuming he or she has permission of the archivist. This cannot be reviewed by a court. And the PRA <a href="http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1183&context=aulr">does not give</a> the archivist or Congress veto power over a president’s record-keeping decisions. In this way, the law creates a system that cannot be checked once the president makes a decision to create, manage or delete a given record. </p>
<p>In the instance of Trump’s deleted and altered tweets, it makes sense to require they be archived and preserved. But if Trump decides to dispose of them without taking such steps, there doesn’t seem to be a federal law to stop him. To create a full digital picture of Trump’s presidency, we may have to rely on the screenshots from private citizens or others.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of an article originally published on Jan. 31, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shontavia Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The law says official presidential records must be preserved. How do tweets figure in – particularly when they’re altered or deleted?Shontavia Johnson, Associate Vice President for Academic Partnerships and Innovation, Clemson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/703252016-12-14T01:23:51Z2016-12-14T01:23:51ZPoliticians who tweet-shame risk economic damage<p>President-elect Trump has recently tweet-shamed several companies. This sort of attack has a real impact on the company and its shareholders, sending shares nosediving and discouraging investment. So perhaps politicians should think twice before releasing critiques into the twittersphere.</p>
<p>The most recent Trump tweet attacked security tech multinational Lockheed, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/808301935728230404">stating</a> its “F-35 program and cost is out of control”. After this tweet Lockheed shares fell around 2.5%. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"808301935728230404"}"></div></p>
<p>This is not the first of his tweets directed at companies. He also <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/806134244384899072">attacked</a> aerospace company Boeing over claims about an overly expensive US$4 billion Air Force One contract. According to fact checkers this claim was only “<a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/dec/06/donald-trump/fact-checking-donald-trumps-tweet-air-force-one-bo/">half-true</a>”. Boeing’s share price fell around 1% immediately after Trump’s tweet, recovering after Boeing could refute it. While Boeing’s price has risen to above its pre-Tweet level, this is in spite of (not because of) the tweet and does not lessen the harm to investors in its immediate aftermath.</p>
<p>Trump has also attacked <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/804884532671430658">Rexnord</a> and Ford, thereafter <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/us/politics/donald-trump-takes-credit-for-helping-to-save-a-ford-plant-that-wasnt-closing.html?_r=0">falsely claiming credit</a> for preventing Ford closing a plant. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"804884532671430658"}"></div></p>
<p>It seems that tweet-shaming is a bipartisan affliction. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/768508732623970304">attacked</a> pharmaceutical company’s Mylan’s epipen price increases, sending its share price 5% lower. In 2015, before she secured the Democratic nomination, Clinton also <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/645974772275408896">attacked</a> the pharmaceutical industry over prices. Afterwards the index composed of biotechnology and pharmaceutical equities listed on the NASDAQ (<a href="https://www.ishares.com/us/products/239699/ishares-nasdaq-biotechnology-etf">the IBB</a>) fell nearly 5%. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"768508732623970304"}"></div></p>
<p>This is not isolated to the US either. In Australia, Bill Shorten <a href="https://twitter.com/billshortenmp/status/805999915994185728">tweeted that Australia’s big four banks</a> were “calling the shots” over the government establishing a banking ombudsman, despite such an ombudsman being <a href="http://www.afr.com/news/politics/ian-ramsay-review-finds-no-need-for-a-new-bank-tribunal-20161205-gt4pxr">recommended by an expert report</a>. </p>
<p>These tweets can pose direct threats to the value the public and shareholders see in these companies.</p>
<h2>When the government directs investment</h2>
<p>Government directed investment tends to generate less value for a company. This is <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w20930">one of the reasons</a> state-owned enterprises tend to underperform. These problems extend to private companies when politicians direct the investments of these companies. </p>
<p>Such government-directed investment can encourage firms to maintain unviable projects, such as facilities that are unprofitable and uncompetitive. This is arguably the case with United Technologies Corp’s Carrier plant in Indiana in the US: the associated jobs were retained only with the help of up to <a href="http://fortune.com/2016/12/02/indiana-carrier-jobs-tax-breaks-mexico/">US$7 million in tax breaks</a>. </p>
<p>Politicians, increasingly via tweet shaming, implicitly exert pressure on companies to maintain such unviable investments. They do this by turning public opinion (and thus sales) against companies. </p>
<p>In doing so, they also raise the threat of regulatory intervention. This inhibits legitimate business decisions that are necessary to maintain profitability and are in investors’ and employees’ long term interests. </p>
<p>This drains the capital that companies would otherwise spend on innovation and value creation. This, in turn, hampers economic growth.</p>
<h2>Risk the government will rip up contracts</h2>
<p>Tweet shaming raises the risk that governments will not uphold their end of a contract with a business, or will seek to amend it. Trump specifically stated that he could cancel a contract with Boeing. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"806134244384899072"}"></div></p>
<p>The risk of governments cancelling, or renegotiating, contracts makes them less reliable. This causes firms to charge more for government work by pricing in the costs of contract failure. These include both the work done and the opportunity cost of foregoing other contracts. This could raise prices in the long term. </p>
<p>This could be a risk in Australia too, although Australian governments have not so far used social media in the same way to strong-arm companies. Australian state governments have abandoned infrastructure contracts at huge cost. </p>
<p>The Victorian Labor government abandoned the East-West road project at a <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-government-settles-east-west-link-claim-for-339m-20150414-1ml9bz.html">cost of A$339 million</a>. The then NSW Labor government <a href="http://www.drive.com.au/motor-news/cross-city-tunnel-road-closures-reversed-20060707-13yk1">backed out of conditions</a> on the Cross-City Tunnel project. This makes contract-related tweets especially sensitive. </p>
<h2>Tweets that discourage investment</h2>
<p>The above problems have follow-on consequences for investment. If a politician turns public sentiment against the company, or <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/trump-boeing-ceo-dennis-muilenburg-232305">coerces</a> suppliers into less profitable arrangements, it affects investment.</p>
<p>The companies who are the targets of these tweets face stiff competition. In the case of US company Carrier, it responded to overseas competition by reducing labour costs and offshoring production to Mexico while retaining higher skilled jobs in the US. If companies must absorb higher labour costs, then they become less profitable and have less cash to reinvest in expansion and innovation. Firms shouldn’t be forced into similar situations because of tweets.</p>
<p>These tweets could also discourage or reduce investment from international businesses. Overseas firms will be <a href="http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/rest.90.2.347#.WEgNavl95PY">less likely to invest</a> in countries that face high degrees of political risk. Alternatively, they will factor in government risk when making investment decisions, causing them to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092911991500156X">value the project less</a>. </p>
<h2>Tweets are not the best way to discipline and monitor companies</h2>
<p>One argued advantage of such political tweets is that they might help to hold companies to their contracts, or to discipline companies for malfeasance. </p>
<p>This advantage is an illusion. In countries like the US, regulators and (where relevant) private citizens, can discipline companies. </p>
<p>This can come in the form of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfineco.2007.06.003">SEC enforcement actions</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfi.2011.09.001">securities class actions</a>. The US government can sue for breaches of contract much as any citizen. It can also pursue firms for breaching regulations through the courts or through penalty mechanisms. </p>
<p>Tweets are arbitrary. Indeed, as some of Trump’s Boeing tweet indicates, they can rest on half truths. </p>
<p>They involve castigating companies even if there is no actual legal wrongdoing. Tweets also constitute an arbitrary form of surveillance. </p>
<p>The pattern of tweet shaming has serious repercussions for the economy. It deters companies form investing. It raises risks for investors in those companies, and is an arbitrary way of disciplining companies.</p>
<p>This is in addition to the latent unfairness of such attacks. It constitutes both an attack on investors and on employees and politicians should avoid it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70325/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Humphery-Jenner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Tweet-shaming from politicians isn’t the best way to regulate companies – it hurts investments, shareholders and ultimately the economy.Mark Humphery-Jenner, Associate Professor of Finance, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/622552016-07-13T23:28:45Z2016-07-13T23:28:45ZHow Twitter gives scientists a window into human happiness and health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130477/original/image-20160713-12380-gpiq61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Each tweet that relays an emotion, opinion or idea joins millions of others. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-425100925/stock-photo-social-media-social-network-concept-communication.html?src=V70GaXnxrTad7K9Ohy05YA-1-33">"Globe" via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since its public launch 10 years ago, Twitter has been used as a social networking platform among friends, an instant messaging service for smartphone users and a promotional tool for corporations and politicians.</p>
<p>But it’s also been an invaluable source of data for researchers and scientists – like myself – who want to study how humans feel and function within complex social systems. </p>
<p>By analyzing tweets, we’ve been able to observe and collect data on the social interactions of millions of people “in the wild,” outside of controlled laboratory experiments.</p>
<p>It’s enabled us to develop tools for monitoring the <a href="http://www.hedonometer.org">collective emotions of large populations</a>, find the <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064417">happiest places in the United States</a> and much more. </p>
<p>So how, exactly, did Twitter become such a unique resource for computational social scientists? And what has it allowed us to discover?</p>
<h2>Twitter’s biggest gift to researchers</h2>
<p>On July 15, 2006, Twittr (as it was then known) <a href="https://gigaom.com/2006/07/15/valleys-all-twttr/">publicly</a> <a href="http://www.bizstone.com/2006/07/let-there-be-twttr.html">launched</a> as a “mobile service that helps groups of friends bounce random thoughts around with SMS.” The ability to send free 140-character group texts drove many early adopters (myself included) to use the platform. </p>
<p>With time, the number of users <a href="http://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/">exploded</a>: from 20 million in 2009 to 200 million in 2012 and 310 million today. Rather than communicating directly with friends, users would simply tell their followers how they felt, respond to news positively or negatively, or crack jokes.</p>
<p>For researchers, Twitter’s biggest gift has been the provision of large quantities of open data. Twitter was one of the first major social networks to provide data samples through something called Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), which enable researchers to query Twitter for specific types of tweets (e.g., tweets that contain certain words), as well as information on users. </p>
<p>This led to an explosion of research projects exploiting this data. Today, a Google Scholar search for “Twitter” produces six million hits, compared with five million for “Facebook.” The difference is especially striking given that Facebook has roughly <a href="http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/">five times as many users as Twitter</a> (and is two years older). </p>
<p>Twitter’s generous data policy undoubtedly led to some excellent free publicity for the company, as interesting scientific studies got picked up by the mainstream media.</p>
<h2>Studying happiness and health</h2>
<p>With traditional census data slow and expensive to collect, open data feeds like Twitter have the potential to provide a real-time window to see changes in large populations.</p>
<p>The University of Vermont’s <a href="http://compstorylab.org">Computational Story Lab</a> was founded in 2006 and studies problems across applied mathematics, sociology and physics. Since 2008, the Story Lab has collected billions of tweets through Twitter’s “Gardenhose” feed, an API that streams a random sample of 10 percent of all public tweets in real time. </p>
<p>I spent three years at the Computational Story Lab and was lucky to be a part of many interesting studies using this data. For example, we developed a <a href="http://www.hedonometer.org">hedonometer</a> that measures the happiness of the Twittersphere in real time. By focusing on geolocated tweets sent from smartphones, we were able to <a href="http://hedonometer.org/maps.html">map</a> the happiest places in the United States. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we found <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064417">Hawaii to be the happiest state and wine-growing Napa the happiest city</a> for 2013.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130034/original/image-20160711-9277-1y6iuyy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130034/original/image-20160711-9277-1y6iuyy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130034/original/image-20160711-9277-1y6iuyy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130034/original/image-20160711-9277-1y6iuyy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130034/original/image-20160711-9277-1y6iuyy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=264&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130034/original/image-20160711-9277-1y6iuyy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130034/original/image-20160711-9277-1y6iuyy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130034/original/image-20160711-9277-1y6iuyy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map of 13 million geolocated U.S. tweets from 2013, colored by happiness, with red indicating happiness and blue indicating sadness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0064417">PLOS ONE</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These studies had deeper applications: Correlating Twitter word usage with demographics helped us understand underlying socioeconomic patterns in cities. For example, we could link word usage with health factors like obesity, so we built a <a href="http://panometer.org/instruments/lexicocalorimeter/">lexicocalorimeter</a> to measure the “caloric content” of social media posts. Tweets from a particular region that mentioned high-calorie foods increased the “caloric content” of that region, while tweets that mentioned exercise activities decreased our metric. We found that this simple measure <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1507.05098">correlates with other health and well-being metrics</a>. In other words, tweets were able to give us a snapshot, at a specific moment in time, of the overall health of a city or region.</p>
<p>Using the richness of Twitter data, we’ve also been able to <a href="http://www.nature.com/articles/srep02625">see people’s daily movement patterns in unprecedented detail</a>. Understanding human mobility patterns, in turn, has the capacity to transform disease modeling, opening up the new field of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002616">digital epidemiology</a>. </p>
<p>For other studies, we looked into whether travelers express greater happiness on Twitter than those who stay at home (answer: they do) and if <a href="http://www.uvm.edu/storylab/2012/07/13/if-youre-happy-and-we-know-it-are-your-friends/">happy individuals tend to stick together in a social network</a> (again, they do). Indeed, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/8/2389.abstract">positivity appears to be baked into language itself</a>, in the sense that we have more positive words than negative words. This wasn’t the case just on Twitter but across a variety of different media (e.g., books, movies and newspapers) and languages. </p>
<p>These studies – and thousands of others like them from around the world – were possible only thanks to Twitter.</p>
<h2>The next 10 years</h2>
<p>So what can we expect to learn from Twitter over the next 10 years? </p>
<p>Some of the most exciting work currently involves connecting social media data with mathematical models to predict population-level phenomena such as disease outbreaks. Researchers have already had some success in augmenting disease models with Twitter data to forecast influenza, notably the <a href="http://fluoutlook.org">FluOutlook</a> platform developed by Northeastern University and the Institute for Scientific Interchange. </p>
<p>Still, a number of challenges remain. Social media data suffer from a very low “signal-to-noise ratio.” In other words, the tweets that are relevant to a particular study are often drowned out by irrelevant “noise.” </p>
<p>Therefore, we must continuously be conscious of what’s been dubbed “<a href="http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/0314policyforumff.pdf">big data hubris</a>” when developing new methods and not be overconfident of our results. Connected with this should be the aim to produce interpretable “glass-box” predictions from these data (as opposed to “black-box” predictions, in which the algorithm is hidden or not clear). </p>
<p>Social media data are often (fairly) criticized for being a small, <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.7400">unrepresentative sample</a> of the wider population. One of the major challenges for researchers is figuring out how to account for such skewed data in statistical models. While <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/08/social-networking-usage-2005-2015/">more people are using social media every year</a>, we must continue to try to understand the biases in this data. For example, the data still tend to overrepresent younger individuals at the expense of older populations.</p>
<p>Only after developing better bias correction methods will researchers be able to make fully confident predictions from tweets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62255/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lewis Mitchell receives funding from Data to Decisions CRC. </span></em></p>On Twitter’s 10th birthday, we look at how researchers have used the platform for a range of studies, from predicting the next flu outbreak to identifying the happiest city in America.Lewis Mitchell, Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/579392016-05-23T10:12:21Z2016-05-23T10:12:21ZCould a tweet or a text increase college enrollment or student achievement?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123413/original/image-20160520-10353-8ul9rq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When do texting, tweeting work?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/garryknight/7003178857/in/photolist-bER864-boFzXZ-Ft5Xgo-6BCFa1-5Q5fr6-aqryhz-AHzBz-8URHGt-edebYm-iCXCMt-nJkxJX-rgjf2s-af4pCw-8V8tAB-5fyta3-kwJtip-68YiR1-dYNhJq-9wExRp-8ModNU-ohaoWW-9n7AtS-d5pe2U-pszrNU-ecS4bj-ctKkzW-dNoPqv-9JfEcZ-f8sjnv-fM2ZcC-eCUmQ8-aUremF-8mFSHR-53upeE-iUiPSs-9wbQGN-6onNpx-6uxDqr-smXDy5-8yNVij-9DaPfM-6KpwXx-aSMgav-CXH8o-hWTp71-8xVZNQ-bLRvp2-6cdxFp-9Zvi9m-718Q3Z">Garry Knight</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Can a few text messages, a timely email or a letter increase college enrollment and student achievement? Such “nudges,” designed carefully using behavioral economics, can be effective.</p>
<p>But when do they work – and when not? </p>
<h2>Barriers to success</h2>
<p>Consider students who have just graduated high school intending to enroll in college. Even among those who have been accepted to college, 15 percent of low-income students <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ssqu.12032/pdf">do not enroll by the next fall</a>. For the large share who intend to enroll in community colleges, this number can be <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2014.12.008">as high as 40 percent</a>.</p>
<p>There are a number of possible reasons for this attrition: many families <a href="https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr739.pdf">overestimate the cost of college</a> because the sticker price of colleges can be much higher than the net price (the sticker price minus the potentially large amount of aid a low-income student could receive); students may struggle <a href="http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/127/3/1205">with complex financial aid forms</a>; there may be <a href="http://econ.msu.edu/seminars/docs/Carrell%20Sacerdote%20College%20Coaching%20Late%20Interventions%207.16.12.pdf">a lack of support</a> to guide them through the application process. So, even when low-income students who are high-achieving <em>do</em> enroll in college, the majority fail to enroll in a college that is comparable <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w18586">to their level of achievement</a>.</p>
<p>Can a few text messages or a timely email overcome these barriers? My research uses behavioral economics to design low-cost, scalable interventions aimed at improving education outcomes. Behavioral economics suggests several important features to make a nudge effective: simplify complex information, make tasks easier to complete and ensure that support is timely.</p>
<p>So, what makes for an effective nudge?</p>
<h2>Improving college enrollment</h2>
<p>In 2012, researchers <a href="http://batten.virginia.edu/school/people/benjamin-castleman">Ben Castleman</a> and <a href="https://www.education.pitt.edu/people/profile.aspx?f=LindsayPage">Lindsay Page</a> sent 10 text messages to nearly 2,000 college-intending students the summer after high school graduation. These messages provided just-in-time reminders on key financial aid, housing and enrollment deadlines from early July to mid August.</p>
<p>Instead of set meetings with counselors, students could reply to messages and receive on-demand support from college guidance counselors to complete key tasks. </p>
<p>In another intervention – <a href="http://siepr.stanford.edu/research/publications/expanding-college-opportunities-high-achieving-low-income-students">the Expanding College Opportunities Project (ECO)</a> – researchers <a href="https://economics.stanford.edu/people/caroline-m-hoxby">Caroline Hoxby</a> and <a href="http://curry.virginia.edu/about/directory/sarah-e.-turner">Sarah Turner</a> worked to help high-achieving, low-income students enroll in colleges on par with their achievement. The intervention arrived to students as a packet in the mail.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123416/original/image-20160520-4475-1x9fhgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123416/original/image-20160520-4475-1x9fhgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123416/original/image-20160520-4475-1x9fhgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123416/original/image-20160520-4475-1x9fhgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123416/original/image-20160520-4475-1x9fhgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123416/original/image-20160520-4475-1x9fhgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123416/original/image-20160520-4475-1x9fhgh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What happens when an intervention arrives in a mail?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=3hUqWo4dsQ1x4jXBhvu-gg&searchterm=letter%20in%20mail&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=318761603">Mail image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The mailer simplified information by providing a list of colleges tailored to each student’s location along with information about net costs, graduation rates, and application deadlines. Moreover, the mailer included easy-to-claim application fee waivers. All these features reduced both the complexity and cost in applying to a wider range of colleges.</p>
<p>In both cases, researchers found that it significantly improved college outcomes. College enrollment went up by 15 percent in the intervention designed to reduce summer melt for community college students. The ECO project increased the likelihood of admission to a selective college by 78 percent.</p>
<h2>Getting parents involved</h2>
<p>Of course, it’s not just at college enrollment time that nudging can be helpful. Parents also face behavioral barriers while their children are in middle and high school. Many parents underestimate the number of assignments <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Epsb2101/BergmanSubmission.pdf">their child has not turned in</a> as well as the number of school days their <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16356435">child has missed</a>. Unfortunately, schools often do a poor job communicating this information to parents <a href="http://www.civicenterprises.net/MediaLibrary/Docs/one_dream_two_realities.pdf">in a timely fashion</a>. </p>
<p>I tested an intervention that sent text messages to parents about their child’s missed assignments and grades. The messages were frequent – sent four times more often than report cards – and provided detailed information to parents about their child’s missed assignments and grades. Each message listed page numbers and problems students needed to complete so that parents could track their child’s progress.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123418/original/image-20160520-27853-iaepe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123418/original/image-20160520-27853-iaepe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123418/original/image-20160520-27853-iaepe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123418/original/image-20160520-27853-iaepe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123418/original/image-20160520-27853-iaepe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123418/original/image-20160520-27853-iaepe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/123418/original/image-20160520-27853-iaepe9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The involvement of parents cam motivate children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/moregoodfoundation/5138615947/in/photolist-8Q5KuF-siP2uS-uC5VL-ct8Rq-6dduu-71Kr2J-aGRCxM-6MbZmy-6M7HQv-6M7Kfa-6MbXqm-6Cgx7-nN5dxA-5R2khv-kqWYbY-5LjvJG-31oyD-nyXG49-nHfFbY-2CwbS-6U7v28-fhUbjp-dLgMc-8GcWzL-ajrqZX-2Cwdr-h9PZC-fJYeFd-g1Hd9-6CgwC-6T9H6u-5PgmcR-cqYi9-5gZbNB-pzmWr-eNsbwW-5PkD1L-e1bVZ4-dfkPz-o4cGj-84YGY-rxBUk-bAyYsa-dyn9kZ-5fLGJg-o8WFKH-rxD8J-9d6YmX-5kB5qf-4VYQCe">More Good Foundation</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Parents responded by communicating with the school more often and motivating their children to do the work: students turned in 25 percent more assignments, which led to <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/%7Epsb2101/BergmanSubmission.pdf">significant improvements</a> in grades and evidence of increased math scores.</p>
<h2>When there is no impact</h2>
<p>While these interventions are promising, there are important caveats. </p>
<p>For instance, our preliminary findings from ongoing research show that information alone may not be enough. We sent emails and letters to more than one hundred thousand college applicants about financial aid and education-related tax benefits. However, we didn’t provide any additional support to help families through the process of <em>claiming</em> these benefits.</p>
<p>In other words, we didn’t provide any support to complete the tasks – no fee waivers, no connection to guidance counselors – just the email and the letter. Without this support to answer questions or help families complete forms to claim the benefits, we found no impact, even when students opened the emails. </p>
<p>More generally, “nudges” often lead to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/opinion/15loewenstein.html?_r=2&hp">modest impacts</a> and should be considered only a part of the solution. But there’s a dearth of low-cost, scalable interventions in education, and behavioral economics can help. </p>
<p>Identifying the crucial decision points – when applications are due, forms need to be filled out or school choices are made – and supplying the just-in-time support to families is key.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Bergman has consulted with Mathematica Policy Research, McGraw-Hill Education and Upraised Learning to develop scalable education interventions. He has received funding from the Smith Richardson Foundation and the Doug and Maria DeVos Foundation to test the effectiveness of alerts to parents.</span></em></p>It’s that time of the year when students get ready to enroll in college. But many don’t, even after being accepted. What can be done?Peter Bergman, Assistant Professor of Economics and Education, Teachers College, Columbia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/528592016-01-11T01:46:23Z2016-01-11T01:46:23ZWhat’s up with Twitter, in fewer than 10,000 characters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107701/original/image-20160111-8715-1hpszzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There's already a lot you can say on Twitter in 140 characters.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/kinetoskop/19156298395/">Flickr/Manuel Schmalstieg</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The internet erupted in outrage last week at <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-character-limit-idUSKBN0UK2HU20160106">reports</a> that Twitter is poised to increase the limit for tweets from 140 to 10,000 characters. </p>
<p>The first rumours of such a move emerged in the tech news website Re/code back in <a href="http://recode.net/2015/09/29/twitter-plans-to-go-beyond-its-140-character-limit/">September</a> then <a href="http://recode.net/2016/01/05/twitter-considering-10000-character-limit-for-tweets/">again last week</a>. The response on Twitter was immediate and, for the most part, somewhere between incensed and bemused, with many thousands of tweets posted with hashtags such as <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%2310kTwitter">#10kTwitter</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Twitter10k">#Twitter10k</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%2310000gate">#10000gate</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23140twitter">#140twitter</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23beyond140">#beyond140</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23longtweets">#longtweets</a>.</p>
<p>CEO and prodigal co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, clarified things in a proof-of-concept #longtweet of his own:</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"684496529621557248"}"></div></p>
<p>We don’t know if this is something that will definitely be rolled out for all users, or just something in the development pipeline. Crucially, we don’t know what the implementation might look like. It is possible that we’re just talking about the ability to append a chunk of extra text to a tweet (to make it readable, searchable and presumably commercially minable).</p>
<p>As we might expect, in the absence of any further confirmation, as far as I can see the frenzy has now pretty much died off.</p>
<h2>Tinkering with Twitter</h2>
<p>This might be a non-story if it weren’t for the fact that concern from a highly engaged userbase over potential or actual platform changes is such an established pattern.</p>
<p>We saw it most recently with Twitter’s change from <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2015/hearts-on-twitter">Favorites to Hearts</a>, but it goes way, way back to the beginning. This latest controversy is only a small part of that much longer and deeper story of how Twitter has been shaped by competing ideas about what it is actually for.</p>
<p>On the surface, extending the length of tweets might seem like a good idea. The 140 character limit is definitely a significant constraint. Anyone who has tried to participate in a complex discussion or a political debate on the platform will have become frustrated by it, and they may have found themselves resorting to work-arounds such as:</p>
<ul>
<li>spreading a statement across multiple tweets (pejoratively known as a <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/why-twitters-newest-tweetstormtm-trend-must-be-stopped#.sgdAzLw60">tweetstorm</a>)</li>
<li>writing a longer form argument elsewhere and linking to it from within the tweet</li>
<li>embedding a screenshot of a longer chunk of text (as Jack Dorsey did, above).</li>
</ul>
<p>The limit, as we know, wasn’t really put in place for aesthetic reasons. It’s just a by-product of Twitter’s origins as a short messaging service for mobile phones.</p>
<p>In fact, extending it was actually <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/05/jack-dorsey-11-things-new-twitter-ceo-needs-to-improve">listed as a priority</a> when The Guardian reported on Jack’s return to the fold as CEO late last year. </p>
<p>But here’s the thing: creativity comes from constraints. Internet jargon is full of abbreviations (<a href="http://stylecaster.com/social-media-acronyms-abbreviations-what-they-mean/">LOL, FWIW, FOMO, TFW, FML</a>) invented by various user communities to get around such limitations, extending way back before Twitter to Internet Relay Chat (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat">IRC</a>) and other messaging or bulletin board services.</p>
<p>It’s not just about workarounds, though. There are a host of new cultural forms and practices that have emerged out of the 140 character limit, such as the specific forms of sometimes absurdist, frequently risque but always pithy humour that characterise the burgeoning field of <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/01/the-75-best-twitter-accounts-of-2015.html">Twitter comedy</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"684108347973349376"}"></div></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"684928756662857732"}"></div></p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"684780156993409024"}"></div></p>
<p>Arguably, brevity is not only <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/hamlet/hamlet.2.2.html">the soul of wit</a>, it’s at the very heart of Twitter. </p>
<h2>The Twitter culture</h2>
<p>Twitter, Inc’s search for a viable revenue model and a way to attract new users en masse has led to a series of platform changes that have sometimes seemed to the core userbase to fly in the face of Twitter’s cultures of use.</p>
<p>And the userbase has a right to complain. Crucially, it is they who created Twitter’s culture as well as some of its technologies, inventing many of the <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/49824/">ad hoc innovations</a> that then got turned into platform features.</p>
<p>It was users who first addressed tweets to one another using the @ symbol, it was users who invented the <a href="https://support.twitter.com/articles/49309">#hashtag</a> and it was users who invented ways to quote tweets with attribution using the RT symbol (for <a href="https://support.twitter.com/articles/20169873">retweet</a>). Over time, these and other user innovations were taken up and hardwired into the platform’s architecture. </p>
<p>But then came the tweaks and transformations. @reply messages to people you weren’t following were hidden from view. Retweets got automated, turning the original tweets into discrete, inviolable chunks of content. This made them much easier to track, metricise and monetise, but much harder for other users to mess with, selectively quote and remix. (Interesting to note that users responded by creating the MT, or <a href="http://twitter.about.com/od/twitter-glossary/g/Whats-Mt-On-Twitter.htm">modified tweet</a>, giving them control again of the retweets.)</p>
<p>Given a spate of recent protests that Twitter <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/4/7982099/twitter-ceo-sent-memo-taking-personal-responsibility-for-the">isn’t fixing what is really broken</a> and is in danger of <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/1/5/10719476/twitter-10000-character">breaking things that work perfectly well</a>, it’s understandable that the community is up in arms once again at the prospect of Twitter abandoning the 140 character limit – arguably the core of all the platform’s native characteristics. </p>
<p>Throughout this history runs a tension between different ideas of what Twitter should or could be for. Was it a personal, mundane and intimate social messaging app; a global nervous system for instant news, information and reactions or a new breed of mainstream media platform?</p>
<p>The tensions between these apparently opposing tendencies have made Twitter dynamic and diverse, supporting everything from <a href="https://twitter.com/davidortiz/status/451032513679749120">presidential selfies</a> to <a href="http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2015/11/black_twitter_thanksgivingwithblackfamilies.html">hashtag memes</a> to on-the-ground infrastructure for <a href="https://theconversation.com/crisis-communication-saving-time-and-lives-in-disasters-through-smarter-social-media-50403">crisis communication</a>.</p>
<h2>Show me the money</h2>
<p>As Nick Bilton’s company biography <a href="http://www.wired.com/2013/11/hatching-twitter/">Hatching Twitter</a> shows, within the company, there always were and still are internal struggles between these different platform logics and the business models that might go with them. </p>
<p>While early adopters loved the mix of interpersonal communication, mundane expression and news that made Twitter unique, that unique blend has proven difficult to monetise.</p>
<p>So Twitter, Inc is experimenting with possible platform tweaks and changes that it presumably hopes will help to attract and retain new users, and deliver sufficient revenue from content and advertising partnerships. This means providing guaranteed attention for branded content, and a better ratio of what might be called signal-to-noise.</p>
<p>You can see this kind of thinking behind changes that have already been made, such as <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2015/removing-the-140-character-limit-from-direct-messages">last August’s move</a> to expand Direct Messages to 10,000 characters, within which you can embed tweets and other content.</p>
<p>With this move, Twitter is trying to create a backchannel for <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/12/9134175/twitter-direct-message-character-limit">discussion and interpersonal communication</a>, and to remove all the noise from the public stream. Of course, this might betray an understanding of users interacting, talking and debating issues as noise, leaving only original content as the signal. This would most definitely be a media-centred, rather than a truly people-centred, model of social media. </p>
<p>Of course, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/dont-fear-the-10ktwitter/423135/">as others have pointed out</a>, there might be cause for optimism as well. One possibility (as <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/684496529621557248">Jack’s tweet seems to indicate</a>) is that this proposed change is quite innocent. It’s just the company noticing something users are doing, and making it available to everyone, just like they did with the @reply, the #hashtag, and the RT.</p>
<p>Jack’s tweet emphasises conversation and connectedness after all. Despite this, it <a href="https://medium.com/@jeanburgess/twitter-probably-isn-t-dying-but-is-it-becoming-less-sociable-d768a9968982">remains to be seen</a> whether the changes Twitter is making over the year enhance the sociable, person-centred Twitter or actually move us toward a media-centred one.</p>
<p>If so, we might need to bid a tearful farewell to the messy and generative convergence of social networking, user hacks and content curation that gave Twitter its unique character and flavour in the first place – not to mention the brevity that is the soul of its wit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52859/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Burgess does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Much of the way people use Twitter has been determined by the users of the social media giant. So why all the upset at talk of allowing tweets beyond the current 140 character limit?Jean Burgess, Professor and Director, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/528872016-01-08T11:18:53Z2016-01-08T11:18:53ZCan 10,000-character tweets boost Twitter’s flatlining user growth?<p>On January 5, Twitter founder and recently reappointed CEO Jack Dorsey <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/684496529621557248">appeared to confirm</a> a story on Re/Code claiming that the micro-blogging site is planning to <a href="http://recode.net/2016/01/05/twitter-considering-10000-character-limit-for-tweets/">change its signature feature</a>: the 140-character tweet. According to Re/Code, Twitter is planning to increase the character limit on tweets to 10,000, and in a carefully worded response, Dorsey suggested that the company is indeed considering loosening its 140-character limit.</p>
<p>The 140-character limit, while today embraced as a defining feature of the platform, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/twitter-basics-why-140-characters-and-how-to-write-more/442608">grew out of a pragmatic decision</a> made nearly 10 years ago. When Twitter launched in 2006, the smartphone had not yet been developed (the first iPhone would launch in 2007). Thus, Twitter decided to limit tweets to 140 characters so that people could update Twitter via text message. At the time, texts were limited to 160 characters, which gave users space for a short, 140-character text tweet plus a username. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"685190158803709953"}"></div></p>
<p>Since then, however, the online world has evolved. Today, Twitter allows users to upload images, and as Dorsey notes, many users have chosen to upload images of long pieces of text. This, together with the ongoing success of Facebook, which allows status updates of over 60,000 characters, may be driving Twitter’s consideration of a character limit update.</p>
<p>Importantly, Re/Code emphasized that the look of the Twitter feed won’t change significantly should the new character limit be adopted. Instead, the article speculated that a traditional 140-character tweet would appear in users’ feeds, together with a call for action (a “click for more” button, for example) that would expand the tweet to reveal additional text.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"684855025663905793"}"></div></p>
<p>Despite these caveats, the news of the possible change was greeted with a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Twitter10K?src=hash">predictable storm of controversy among Twitter users</a>, as well as exhaustive pro- and anti-#Twitter10k articles. Whatever their perspective, however, commentators were agreed that this would be just the latest salvo in Twitter’s ongoing effort to boost weak user growth and revenue.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107585/original/image-20160107-14020-1q36r25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107585/original/image-20160107-14020-1q36r25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107585/original/image-20160107-14020-1q36r25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107585/original/image-20160107-14020-1q36r25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107585/original/image-20160107-14020-1q36r25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=332&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107585/original/image-20160107-14020-1q36r25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107585/original/image-20160107-14020-1q36r25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107585/original/image-20160107-14020-1q36r25.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twitter’s monthly active users growth over time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter SEC filings</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Twitter’s growth conundrum</h2>
<p>Twitter’s user growth has been stagnating for some time; since the first quarter of 2013, it has averaged less than 5 percent quarter over quarter. As a consequence, the company has seen its share price decline. From a high of just over US$73 in December 2013, Twitter is currently trading at an all-time low, just over $20. </p>
<p>Hoping to boost its fortunes, Twitter has floated various site tweaks in recent months, including the highly publicized <a href="https://theconversation.com/does-twitter-moments-herald-the-comeback-of-human-beings-49417">Moments feature</a>, and more recently, a curated “<a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2015/while-you-were-away-0">while you were away</a>” feature. The potential character limit increase has been widely understood as another effort by Twitter to attract and engage new users, particularly those who may be put off by the 140-character limit when they are used to more unlimited platforms like Facebook. </p>
<p>However, the news of the potential character limit increase was <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8a650e34-b47d-11e5-b147-e5e5bba42e51.html">received negatively</a> by analysts and investors as well as users; the company’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/05/twitter-shares-plummet-rumor-10000-character-tweets-jack-dorsey">share price fell</a> almost 3 percent on Tuesday after the Re/Code story broke.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107592/original/image-20160107-13999-df7pw4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107592/original/image-20160107-13999-df7pw4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107592/original/image-20160107-13999-df7pw4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107592/original/image-20160107-13999-df7pw4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107592/original/image-20160107-13999-df7pw4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107592/original/image-20160107-13999-df7pw4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107592/original/image-20160107-13999-df7pw4.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Twitter share price over time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yahoo! Finance</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why #Twitter10k?</h2>
<p>Twitter’s need for innovation to drive user growth is clear; the company is currently losing ground to emerging social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, which have seen <a href="http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/snapchat-is-the-fastest-growing-social-network-infographic/624116">double-digit user growth in recent years</a>. Twitter also struggles with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-maus-with-no-discernable-user-action-involved-2015-1?r=UK&IR=T">a lack of engagement</a> among many users.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"684832677745180673"}"></div></p>
<p>A more generous character limit might achieve several things. First, it could attract new users who find the 140-character limit arbitrary and confusing. More pertinently, as Slate’s Will Oremus <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/01/05/twitter_isn_t_raising_the_140_character_limit_it_s_building_a_wall.html">points out</a>, having more text housed within Twitter would help keep users on-site. Currently, many tweets send users away from Twitter by linking to externally hosted articles and blogs. If Twitter housed more text, users could read the news without leaving the platform (this is a key driver behind Facebook’s <a href="https://instantarticles.fb.com">Instant Articles</a>). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107605/original/image-20160107-14027-38z71w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107605/original/image-20160107-14027-38z71w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107605/original/image-20160107-14027-38z71w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107605/original/image-20160107-14027-38z71w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107605/original/image-20160107-14027-38z71w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107605/original/image-20160107-14027-38z71w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107605/original/image-20160107-14027-38z71w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107605/original/image-20160107-14027-38z71w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Are you up for reading voluminously long tweets?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/23680544@N07/4342933198">Sarah Ross</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately, however, the increased character limit may help Twitter give users more of what they want. A 2009 paper by Syracuse University’s Philip R. Johnson and Sung-Un Yang found that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Philip_Johnson3/publication/228959109_Uses_and_gratifications_of_Twitter_An_examination_of_user_motives_and_satisfaction_of_Twitter_use/links/53d85dfb0cf2631430c31e58.pdf">Twitter users were more interested</a> in the platform as an information source than as a space for satisfying social needs. </p>
<p>In a similar vein, <a href="http://aisel.aisnet.org/sighci2010/3/">a 2010 study</a> by Michigan State University’s Constantinos K. Coursaris, Younghwa Yun and Jieun Sung found that the need for companionship and social interaction were not significantly associated with Twitter usage, while needs for entertainment and relaxation were. Finally, High Point University’s Shaun W. Davenport, and Shawn M. Bergman, Jacqueline Z. Bergman, and Matthew E. Fearrington of Appalachian State University found a relationship between <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.12.011">narcissism and active Twitter usage</a> among college students. </p>
<p>This research suggests that people are not necessarily using Twitter as a social space for building relationships, but rather as a space for idea exchange, content dissemination and information gathering. Platforms like Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and Snapchat, which have been growing rapidly, are spaces for relationship building in a way that Twitter is not. </p>
<p>Instead, Twitter’s utility appears to lie in its ability to connect people to new, pertinent information and opinions. From that perspective, the increased character limit may indeed make sense, not as a ploy for driving user growth, but as a way to give current and future users more of what Twitter does best.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Felicity Duncan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The social media company seems to be mulling a massive increase in tweet length from the iconic 140 characters users have grown accustomed to.Felicity Duncan, Assistant Professor of Digital Communication and Social Media, Cabrini CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.