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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, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @07:03PM
What do companies and large western democracies have in common?
The larger they get, the more authoritarian and dictator like the higher up structures have to become. Otherwise the system is paralyzed as the higher ups wait for those lower than them to finish with committees and votes and debates on issues.
This century will be the century of limits. We will learn the limits of our environment, the limits of our planet's resources to sustain us as we live now, the limits of our political structures which were never designed to handle so many people.
How we learn these limits is up to the populace at large, and right now the lessons appear to be harsh.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 14 2016, @07:10PM
The larger they get, the more authoritarian and dictator like the higher up structures have to become. Otherwise the system is paralyzed as the higher ups wait for those lower than them to finish with committees and votes and debates on issues.
No. Just no. In a proper system, various levels have different mandates. Or are you saying that Federal government is waiting for the school boards to decide their spending? Or on the cities??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 15 2016, @02:26AM
Not directly. Though if they want to tune the national education focus they may want to know what schools spend money on and how much money they have.