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posted by cmn32480 on Monday November 14 2016, @07:36AM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday November 14 2016, @08:38PM

    by edIII (791) on Monday November 14 2016, @08:38PM (#426647)

    I love you academics :)

    We never had a representative democracy in the first place. It never actually happened, but was heavily marketed as if it had. Then some fluff was put into place to make people FEEL as if they had control.

    Think of like this, and this is a real example. Cross walks and the 'press to walk' buttons. In very many cases these are vestigial buttons deliberately left to allow people to FEEL as they are in control, while software has completely taken over all traffic functions city wide. Studies were done that showed when people felt in control, although they actually had none, they felt less stressed, or the cross walking experience was regarded as more positive.

    That's our government. We have Senators and Congressmen, and we get to vote as if it means any difference whatsoever. We go into the voting booths to press our buttons under the rampant and persistent delusion that it can change the conditions of the working class. Regardless of who wins, those aforementioned ratios in the TFS are tragically and hilariously wrong. It serves to create a game in which there is a winner and loser, pull all the hoi polloi into this game, and then give each side a scapegoat for the unending and unrelenting fucking of the American people from the very first second of our farcically free republic.

    It's not one Senator to 3 million people, but one Senator to perhaps 500 lobbyists which represent the interests of probably less than 50 actual people. Twitter is just the crossing walk buttons, and people seem to intuit this. When faced with the actual ability to personally engage with a politician..... shock and surprise.... they fire their heart upon these politicians as if their chests were cannons.

    Representative democracy is NOT becoming dated. We're simply realizing that the game was, and is, fundamentally broken. It would be a mistake to think that the idea itself was what was broken, when the implementation was never genuine from the start. Unlike cross walk buttons which did have a purpose, and that was to serve the pedestrians, government's purpose from the very beginning was to serve specific people and their own interests well beyond that of the people at large.

    The American people are the most abused, and stupid, people on the entire planet. We had our wealth stolen from us from the beginning, and it has been slowly siphoned off by the robber barons of old that simply evolved into the psychotically avaricious groupings of parasites that exist today.

    Nothing is ever gained in American politics towards the good of Americans except that in which we, the working class of America, fought hard and died for in massive strikes to finally obtain under threat of fire and destruction of their ways and their institutions. We didn't receive the 8 hour day as a positive effect of proper government and representatives expressing compassion, empathy, and the morality that we like to believe is ours. We were literally called terrorists, Communists, insurrectionists, and every other evil label in the book, we were shot in the backs, we were killed in front of lamenting mothers and children that were often killed themselves in the strife.

    Where were the Senators then? Where were our Congressmen? That's right! They were at lavish parties hosted by a handful of the richest robber baron families. The militias were simply told to fire upon their own, because they selfishly demanded the wages promised to them before the war. The bonus marchers marched upon Washington begging for the ear of the Senators, Congressmen, and their President. They were fed a diet of lead from rifles fired by their brothers in arms. Fast forward nearly 200 years and nothing has changed. The level of corruption has reached staggering levels, and inequality now sits at well over 90%. Just like the bonus marchers of old, we have National Guardsmen that were promised reasonable amounts of money to quite possibly give their lives in the Middle East. Now government is grinding their faces into the ground under its boot heels, and more Americans may be shot and killed by their brothers in arms. This is something taught to them by the very government oppressing them, stand up for yourselves and fight for your freedoms! Our soldiers then march upon Washington, unarmed, seeking redress for their grievances only to receive none except the final redress from life itself, which is death.

    I would say it is a high time we give ourselves a representative democracy. That would be something new, and I'm all for it. The American people could finally be represented, our interests would come first, and the parasites would be excised from our great republic with extreme prejudice.

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER IT OR ABOLISH IT, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, IT IS THEIR RIGHT, IT IS THEIR DUTY, TO THROW OFF SUCH GOVERNMENT, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present **Leadership and Institutions of the US have** a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:

    ** My words

    I think we all know the facts, we all know the abuses. Our founding fathers laid our path out for us in print with no uncertain words.

    Our republic has failed us, and it is no longer treasonous to discuss how we build a new one together. Quite likely with a few Western states succeeding from the union that never served them.

    Who wants a representative democracy in the US for the first time?

    --
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