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from the twitter-is-known-for-being-a-place-of-kindness-and-intelligence dept.
El Reg reports in a story that at least some people seem to think so.
Twitter trolls are undermining what political analysts had predicted would be a new form of responsive democracy.
Far from being an opportunity to engage directly with voters, researchers found that the more politicians tried to actively interact with their constituents, the more abuse they faced.
The eggheads, based in Europe and the US, analyzed just under 800,000 tweets from over 650 politicians based in Germany, Greece, Spain and the UK and found that the percentage of "impolite" tweets directed at them went from 8 per cent when they did nothing to an extraordinary 40 per cent when they actively tried to engage with voters.
If that wasn't depressing enough, the paper notes that the level of abuse increases almost exactly proportionally to how engaging people's messages are. The more they asked to hear people's views, the more those views were insulting.
"Most politicians who post anything quickly become subject to constant personal abuse," the paper, published in the Journal of Communication, notes.
Such is the level of unpleasantness and vehemence that most politicians simply give up and use their Twitter accounts to simply broadcast messages rather than seek input or discussion. Something that, ironically, has led to them being criticized for ignoring voters and not being sufficiently open or engaging.
My take: The egg heads may be right on this, however there is nothing inherently undemocratic in people publishing libelous and slanderous crap about politicians. It's been happening in American democracy for at least as long as the republic has been in existence. Some of the things said about Thomas Jefferson when he was running for president were worse than what we were subjected to during this election cycle.
(Score: 1) by nobu_the_bard on Monday November 14 2016, @06:00PM
Caesar hated people thinking he was gay. It wasn't a big deal to most people at time, but to Caesar being macho was important. He often seduced other mens' wives just because he could, and loved the infamy that came with it (and strangely most of them were okay with it - "my wife is so beautiful CAESAR seduced her!" was a thing?).
There was a longstanding rumor that a VIP from Babylon had "seduced" him when he was younger and people loved ribbing him about it (both in a friendly manner and in a not-so-friendly manner) and it was noted by people at the time as one of the few things that would genuinely get him angry in public. To the Romans this seemed a hilariously minor thing to get angry about, which just made them do it to him more. He even had issued an official proclamation of his straightness one time.