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So @antmandan and I analysed the partisan hashtag 'My*Choices*Are*Dans*Fault', which went from freshly born to No. 1 on the trending list in less than 1 hour 
Once again, @PRGuy17 is a one-person army driving political polarisation on Aus twitter.
Here's the timeline:
(1/6)
Once again, @PRGuy17 is a one-person army driving political polarisation on Aus twitter.
Here's the timeline:
(1/6)
Sentiment analysis* shows that it is an overwhelmingly negative campaign.
The diagram below shows average sentiment over time (per hour), where:
-1 is extreme negative
0 is neutral
1 is extreme positive
*using the VADER tool; usual caveats apply
(2/6)
The diagram below shows average sentiment over time (per hour), where:
-1 is extreme negative
0 is neutral
1 is extreme positive
*using the VADER tool; usual caveats apply
(2/6)
Of the 1166 accounts pushing this hashtag, we find that 72% (841) are also in the "I*Stand*With*Dan" dataset from our paper below.
But where "I*Stand*With*Dan" was overwhelmingly positive, this hashtag is the opposite.
(3/6) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1329878X20981780
But where "I*Stand*With*Dan" was overwhelmingly positive, this hashtag is the opposite.
(3/6) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1329878X20981780
In this way, @PRGuy17 is co-opting and mobilising the "I*Stand*With*Dan" supporters to further politicise #COVID19Aus and drive a wedge into #covidnsw and #CovidVic.
If you're worried about how divisive and polarised Australian Twitter is right now,
is a big reason why.
(4/6)
If you're worried about how divisive and polarised Australian Twitter is right now,
is a big reason why.(4/6)
The purpose of this analysis is to continue shining a light on how partisan hashtag campaigns work in Australia. We hope you've found it helpful.
To sum up, Twitter's trending list is exploitable and broken af
(5/6)
To sum up, Twitter's trending list is exploitable and broken af
(5/6)
As usual, in the interest rigour and reproducibility, we provide all the tweet IDs open source:
(6/6) https://github.com/timothyjgraham/MyChoicesAreDansFault
(6/6) https://github.com/timothyjgraham/MyChoicesAreDansFault
