in the methodology section, the said they only focussed on tweets concerning national-level politics.
they don’t mention if they attempted to filter out bots or non-americansposing as Americans
Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
41–50 of 100 posts
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#42Journalism would only be improved if every journalist got off of Twitter tomorrow. It's not representative of mainstream opinion. And the artificially created and cultivated Twitter echo chamber couldn't help but warp anybody's neutrality. Unfortunately, it's still seen as the best way to drive clicks.
Journalism is over. It doesn't matter what journalists do now. It was a by-product of mass media massive ad business which is being quickly taken over by tech companies.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#43So what % of Americans _read_ the political tweets?
Much lower than the percentage that read articles about the tweets.
But nevertheless, the content finds its way.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#44If you, like me, find the non-political part of Twitter valuable, I have discovered that Twitter has built in filtering tools. It's pretty simple. Each time I see a tweet I dislike, I pick one word from it and add it to my "mute word" list. It's now filled with words like "trump", "liberal", "minister", etc, and now I see interesting technical discussions instead of political trash.
Serious question: what is the benefit of Twitter? I never understood it. Since you’ve found a utility niche, would you expand on the statement?
Idiosyncratic musings and one liners. Some people are truly masters of this new art.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#45If you, like me, find the non-political part of Twitter valuable, I have discovered that Twitter has built in filtering tools. It's pretty simple. Each time I see a tweet I dislike, I pick one word from it and add it to my "mute word" list. It's now filled with words like "trump", "liberal", "minister", etc, and now I see interesting technical discussions instead of political trash.
I've done this by following a small amount of people and being extremely judicious in adding new ones (and quick to remove them: there are a couple writers I enjoy that do nothing but shitpost about politics on Twitter). I will say that my approach has the downside of being very low-volume though
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#46Not really a surprise - is it? I bet [small-percentage]% of Americans produce [very-large-percentage]% of tech tweets too. Same with sewing tweets. Same with porn tweets. Being very active in politics is either a career choice or a hobby. And very active in this case means talking about it. It's like knowing about celebrity gossip at this point because that's practically what it is for a lot of this stuff.
The most surprising thing to me is the split in age distribution among user base vs. overall tweeting vs. political tweeting. Users 18-49 were 73% of the user base and produced 72% of tweets, but only 27% of political tweets. Users 50+ were only 26% of the user base and produced only 28% of tweets, but 73% of political tweets.
I'm pretty sure this is not true. They probably just haven't captured the way younger people speak about politics because it's largely in culture wars terms, not mentions of national politicians, institutions or groups, as well as civic behaviors such as voting.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#47If you, like me, find the non-political part of Twitter valuable, I have discovered that Twitter has built in filtering tools. It's pretty simple. Each time I see a tweet I dislike, I pick one word from it and add it to my "mute word" list. It's now filled with words like "trump", "liberal", "minister", etc, and now I see interesting technical discussions instead of political trash.
Serious question: what is the benefit of Twitter? I never understood it. Since you’ve found a utility niche, would you expand on the statement?
At a minimum, for me it's been a very high-quality personal RSS. If I were so inclined, the fact that I can engage in the fascinating conversations I'm seeing is a bonus. This does rely on keeping a tightly curated following list
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#48If you, like me, find the non-political part of Twitter valuable, I have discovered that Twitter has built in filtering tools. It's pretty simple. Each time I see a tweet I dislike, I pick one word from it and add it to my "mute word" list. It's now filled with words like "trump", "liberal", "minister", etc, and now I see interesting technical discussions instead of political trash.
brexit, leave, remain, abortion, court, referendum, coalition, parliament, Congress, etc.
Instead of playing wack-a-mole like this, it may be time to start employing Bayesian "spam filters". (e.g. A Plan for Spam)
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#49If you, like me, find the non-political part of Twitter valuable, I have discovered that Twitter has built in filtering tools. It's pretty simple. Each time I see a tweet I dislike, I pick one word from it and add it to my "mute word" list. It's now filled with words like "trump", "liberal", "minister", etc, and now I see interesting technical discussions instead of political trash.
Serious question: what is the benefit of Twitter? I never understood it. Since you’ve found a utility niche, would you expand on the statement?
It's like r/programming or such.
Re: Small share of U.S. adults produce majority of tweets on national politics
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Serious question: what is the benefit of Twitter? I never understood it. Since you’ve found a utility niche, would you expand on the statement?
Marketing, It's great for brands or anybody that has something to sell (a book, a product, an idea,...). It kind of replaced RSS for many people, expect it's a centralised tool. Unfortunately "journalists" use it way too often to make up news out of nothing, gather random photos/videos without fact checking and spread rumors and falsehoods as truth. Something like the Covington Catholic school fiasco heavily relayed…
Eh. I dated a nationally recognized journalist / writer. They use it to network and follow trends. Or, if they're working on a story someone else has covered, to see if there is anything that that person could share that didn't make it into the article (background conversations, etc).
When it comes to the actual work though she spend 99% of her time at the library, archives, prison, or on the phone with sources.