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24 November 2014updated 25 Nov 2014 11:58am

The seven deadly sins of tweeting about politics

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By New Statesman

(Photo By #Cameronmustgo must go. Photo: Getty)

As #CameronMustGo hashtaggers are tweeting their fury about the fact that mainstream news outlets haven’t picked up their online campaign, it’s time to look at the worst sins committed by those who take their political insights to Twitter.
 

Accusing the BBC of bias for not reporting things that… aren’t stories.

Although this particular sin has been heightened today by #CameronMustGo tweeters attacking the BBC for refusing to pick up on their hashtag campaign, it is a time-old, enduring trope of angry political tweets. If the Beeb doesn’t mention Some People Being Angry at the Prime Minister, whether it’s stated in a hashtag or via a handful of people protesting somewhere, it is accused of rightwing bias. If it does anything else, it’s accused of leftwing bias.

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Failing to understand the point of the House of Commons chamber.

This is a particularly popular genre of political tweetery: taking a screenshot of MPs debating in the Commons, and commenting on how heartless and detached they are because not all 650 of our representatives are present for whichever debate the tweeter has seized upon. Even if it’s a late afternoon adjournment debate about the capacity of the West Anglia Rail Line. This lack of a fundamental understanding of how the Commons is supposed to work is nicely parodied here:

And here are some real ones:


Saying “this keeps being removed” when it really doesn’t.

A nefarious internet conspiracy is inevitably pointed out whenever someone makes a meme of a politician of the ruling party being ripped apart, usually by a civilian wide-eyed with sincerity, on television. For some reason, many users decide that Twitter’s staff can be bothered to rake through its billions of tweets to delete a minor skirmish from the Daily Politics on a Tuesday in order to protect the reputation of a little-known UK government minister. And they beg you for a retweet.


Tweeting a picture of a politician you admire/Owen Jones beside a big block of text.

A particularly offensive Twitter sin, mainly due to the fact that the font is always terrible on these things. Someone somewhere sits and transcribes a favourite quote from a respected heavyweight politician, or a junior shadow minister, or Owen Jones, highlights it all and hits Tempus Sans, pastes it over a picture of their fave public figure and then watches their treasured work take flight among fellow Twitter sinners.


PMQs verdict/review/in short – and then just listing your party’s attack lines.

If watching Prime Minister’s Questions with Twitter by your side, it is common practice to give your snap “verdict” on the exchange. This means politicians and supporters of both Cameron and Miliband’s parties give us the same review each week: summing up their party’s attack lines. Sometimes “privatising the NHS” is exchanged for “tax-cuts for millionaires”, but each week is pretty constant.


Nazi/Communist references.

This is the GCSE school of politics tweets: linking rightwing parties with Hitler, and leftwing parties with Marx.


Orwell references.

Well, really it’s just the one reference: They “looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again… “. A favourite accompanying picture for this one is the Prime Minister with a pig for a face, but, as seen below by one inventive tweeter, it can equally be used to say something cynical about the Labour party:

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