LONDON- Over 15 million tweets were generated from the campaign leading up to the British parliamentary elections last week. On Thursday, Twitter said that these figures are up 66% from the previous election in 2017.
Billed as the most pivotal election in a generation, the December 12th general election was one to remember with people in power clashing over everything- Brexit, NHS or trusting political leaders.
One minute shortly after the key exit poll publication, after voting ended at 10 pm, approximately 10,000 tweets were sent out. Twitter was central in an early trust controversy when PM Johnson’s Conservatives rebranded their account as “factcheckUK” during a TV debate.
Twitter warned the Conservatives not to mislead public and not long after, barred political advertising on the social networking platform. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, said that political conversation must not be “compromised by money” on Twitter.
On a lighter note, pictures of a few friendly four-legged canines posing outside polling stations were trending on election day from 7 am. The dog posts are becoming a tradition on election day over recent years and over 122,000 #DogsAtPollingStations tweets were posted this year.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field.