Is Twitter just a tool for the chattering classes? It seems so. A new Prospect/YouGov poll reveals that the belief of Twitter users in civil liberties is the most important factor distinguishing them from the general public. British users showed liberal inclinations in October, by breaking a court injunction banning the Guardian from naming mining company Trafigura. They then turned on Daily Mail writer Jan Moir for ill-judged remarks on the death of gay pop star Stephen Gately, and Sunday Times critic AA Gill for shooting a baboon on safari.
Such actions are part of a broader trend. Our poll shows that while 57 per cent of Britons think greater police powers to tackle terrorism are more important than protecting civil liberties, less than half of Twitter users agree. Fifty-six per cent of the public agree that “the greatest victims of discrimination in Britain these days are often ordinary white
Richard Stacy
I’m sorry – you haven’t a clue.
http://richardstacy.com/2009/11/18/shock-new-telephone-users-poll-from-prospect-magazine/
Jacqueline
Twittering is for idiots: anyone not put off by the name alone is seriously deficient in sensibility. Although I suppose it is more a case of the lemming tendency; fashion victims all, they appear to be left or liberal because, whatever is ‘a la page’ reformulates itself as their deeply-held belief.
Rob Fuller
This is such a non-story. You report that (a) many British Twitter users are under 35, and (b) Twitter users share similar political attitudes to those aged under-35s. Do you think those two facts might be related? Is (b) surprising in the light of (a)?
Anything for a press release….