Tag Archives: Twitter

Twitter isn’t egalitarian. Tell me something new.

There’s a story on The Telegraph website today entitled Twitter ‘elite’ send most tweets. That’s not quite a fair representation of the story itself – the most important parts of the story are these:

Fifty per cent of all tweets read and shared on Twitter are generated by only 20,000 ‘elite’ users, despite there being more than 200 million registered accounts on the service.

[...]

Information flows have not become egalitarian by any means

The researchers also found that individuals on Twitter follow back far less than they’re followed, making it a less ‘social’ platform than the likes of Facebook.

The research that informs the article is from Yahoo Research, and there is a much more detailed and nuanced review of it from Nieman Journalism Lab here.

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@WilliamJHague on Twitter – governmental and party political, and in contravention of the Ministerial Code

The screenshot above was taken at 1719 today, showing William Hague’s Twitter account, @WilliamJHague. It’s worth noting the three tweets present at the top, shown in more detail here:

The first tweet is explicitly party political, while the second and third are retweets of governmental business.

The Hague account states first and foremost that he is Foreign Secretary, the background image is the main FCO building on King Charles Street, and most of the content is for explicitly FCO purposes. The Q&A sessions about foreign policy that are done using the account are mentioned – officially – on the FCO website. See this report from 10th February for example.

So is this account governmental, or party political? Today’s screenshot proves that it is both.

There is no doubt that Hague’s influence on Twitter – his number of followers – is in part due to the Q&A sessions, and as these are linked from the FCO site this means FCO staff time has been involved in running and publicising them. FCO staff resources have been used. Hague then uses this extended reach to make party political points…

This is clearly in contravention of point 6.1 and point 6.3 of the Ministerial Code (PDF here, p.12):

6.1 Facilities provided to Ministers at Government expense to enable them to carry out their official duties should not be used for Party or constituency work

6.3 Official facilities and resources [my emphasis] may not be used for the dissemination of material which is essentially party political

So what is the solution? Either Hague must make his account explicitly governmental (no party political points) or he must cease to use any FCO resources to assist with any of his work on Twitter, and all links and references to the account should be removed from the FCO website.

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So #NetrootsUK wasn’t gender balanced enough, Luke Akehurst enough, African or Caribbean enough… I think we’re missing the point

So 2 days after #NetrootsUK, and a load of recriminations rumble on, mostly on Twitter. Sigh. Here’s a selection.

@Jessica_Asato I would like to have gone just as ordinary attendee but received no info so assumed was an invite only event
08.01.2011 16:38 via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite
@lukeakehurst
Luke Akehurst
@LukeBozier V. old excuse of sexism: "We'd promote women if only we knew who they were!" #netroots I thought you didnt want to fight abt it?
10.01.2011 17:16 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@yonmei
Yonmei
@sunny_hundal no African or Carribean input no focus on racism to much corporate involvement #netrootsuk Im not @DAaronovitch so no reply,
08.01.2011 16:00 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@LeeJasper
Lee Jasper

Look folks, events can always be more representative, more diverse, more gender balanced. But look at #NetrootsUK and compare it to almost any Labour event I have ever been to, and it was not at all bad. Compare it to Labour Party Conference, a preserve of old, white men, and #NetrootsUK was reasonably gender balanced, reasonably ethnically diverse, and definitely younger than your average party political meeting.

Let’s also not forget that it was organised by the TUC in double quick time, with plenty of volunteers chipping in with suggestions and helping out, summed up by this from Nishma Doshi:

@MissEllieMae How was it elitist? I had a panel session and I'm hardly in the leftie "in-crowd" - whatever that is. @jonworth
10.01.2011 14:12 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@NishmaDoshi
Nishma Doshi

This was the first ever event of this nature in the UK, and it generated loads of good conversations, ideas, energy. It will have helped provide the skills and the networks to boost representation of all kinds of groups online. This is most definitely a glass half full, not a glass half empty. Or did I go to a different conference to everyone else?

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Twitter: the new new mainstream


A Very Public Sociologist has completed a second annual survey of the number of Twitter followers of people who also write political blogs in the UK. I finished up 34th on this list last year, now I’m down to 61st. Other people who blog alongside their main non-media day job have dropped too – Tom Watson from 4th to 10th, Kerry McCarthy from 7th to 21st, Wardman Wire from 6th to 29th, Mark Pack from 32nd to 50th.

Alastair Campbell maintains top spot, but numbers 2-5 are all new entries, and they are all mainstream media journalists taking to Twitter - Jon Snow (36,962 followers), Johann Hari (33,656 followers), Krishnan Guru-Murthy (32,917 followers) and Nick Robinson (27,337 followers).

Am I remotely surprised? No. For it seems that Twitter is going the same way as blogging – it’s the new new mainstream.

Just as with blogging there was an early mover advantage, lasting a couple of years, so it was the case with Twitter, only the gap closed even more swiftly this time. I was one of the early adopters, everyone else has caught up and then surged ahead. Next year I probably won’t even make the top 100.

So where’s the next shiny new tech bandwaggon to jump on then?

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A roundup of the #EUCO – Berlusconi Twitterwall story

Twitter EUCO Berlusconi Search - click to view at full size

Twitter EUCO Berlusconi Search - click to view at full size

The screenshot above shows the oldest results from search.twitter.com for “EUCO Berlusconi”, and explains how the Twitterwall story started (I’ve previously posted about here and here). Just to set the record straight this is exactly what happened.

First, I realised that tweets containing #EUCO would appear on the Twitter wall, and – among other critical tweets – wrote this, the first tweet shown above mentioning Berlusconi.

Second, a few minutes later I followed up with this tweet to @zanlaura, @Elena2010 and @svaroschi, Italian political people I follow. The tweet was re-tweeted by @zanlaura, and then further re-tweeted by @mpietropoli, the Twitter user credited by The Guardian as the tweeter who caused the Twitterwall to be turned off.

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The need for a credible bargain – what the EU should learn from today’s #EUCO Twitter wall experience


There’s a legendary story for those of us that look at political activity on the web that concerns change.gov, Obama’s platform to allow the public to put forward their political ideas that went live the day after he was inaugurated. Give the people a platform, so the argument went, and excellent ideas for future legislation will emerge.

Not so, or at least not in the way anyone expected. And there are parallels for today’s European Council Twitter experience.

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Let’s get #EUCO trending


There are two live Twitter walls at today’s European Council in Brussels, as shown above in this Twitpic from @EUCouncilPress. All you have to do is put #EUCO in your tweets. A few of my contributions so far:

All EU Countries: fair trial and follow the legal process for Assange. Legal protection for Wikileaks! #EUCO
16.12.2010 14:58 via NambuReplyRetweetFavorite
@jonworth
Jon Worth
To David Cameron arriving at #EUCO - what false battle are you going to tell eurosceptics you're fighting this time, before caving in?
16.12.2010 14:40 via NambuReplyRetweetFavorite
@jonworth
Jon Worth
To Silvio Berlusconi arriving at #EUCO - didn't expect to be seeing you! With any luck this will be the last time...
16.12.2010 14:35 via NambuReplyRetweetFavorite
@jonworth
Jon Worth

Get on with it folks – be creative, spread the word, and let’s get this trending on Twitter!

[UPDATE - 1830]
So the Italians found the hash tag, and tweeted all kinds of critique of Berlusconi, something the Council of the EU described simply as ‘noise’, before turning off the Twitter wall early.

Great to see comments in different languages with #EUCO hashtag. Multilingualism thanks to you! Pitty so much #noise as well.
16.12.2010 16:45 via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@EUCouncilPress
EU Council Press
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Ordnung muss sein – order vs. serendipity on the social web

I get lots of work done due to systems to improve my efficiency. My mail is meticulously filtered with mail rules. Server data is neatly arranged. RSS feeds for the blogs I read are ruthlessly ordered in Netvibes. I’m hence reasonably good at getting the news I want from the sources I want in a format that suits me and – importantly – it’s a system where how much information I get, and whether to go back over old posts, is determined by me.

I’m also active on Facebook and Twitter, and the surprising things those networks turn up are the equivalent of browsing the pages of a newspaper – something catches your eye. Discovering this piece on Twitter’s great pretenders, thanks to a tweet from Evan Harris, was a highlight of the past week. I saw this because I happened to notice that tweet at that time – 2 minutes earlier or later and I would have missed it. Same – in reverse – for anything I ever tweet or post on Facebook and friends who read those. How do I know if what I write, and when, fits the systems, the everyday habits, of my audience? For social media (especially Facebook and its algorithms to determine what’s in a home feed) is serendipitous and opaque to understand at best.

Where is the balance between the two approaches? And what does all of this mean for trust and networking on the web?

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