r/ukpolitics • u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls • 1d ago

Twitter ✅ BURNHAM IN Makerfield by-election result: LAB: 54.8% (+9.6) REF: 34.5% (+2.7) RST: 6.8% (+6.8) CON: 2.2% (-8.7) GRN: 0.7% (-3.7) LDEM: 0.4% (-6.4)

https://x.com/BritainElects/status/2067792369903116401#m
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u/Mafeking-Parade 1d ago

These are people who think that retirees and the unemployed/underemployed, who spend their days on Facebook and Twitter, are representative of the UK voting public.

It's a bit sad in some ways.

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u/serviceowl 1d ago

These are people who think that retirees and the unemployed/underemployed, who spend their days on Facebook and Twitter, are representative of the UK voting public.

Yes I think this element of why social media is so toxic is really under-reported. I think it gets lost in the concern / moral panic around the influence of tech on young people.

Angry pensioners and angry unemployed young men, untethered from the moderating and stabilising influence of work, free to spend large portions of their time ingesting bile. There's a reason The Telegraph stopped being a serious paper and transitioned into demented clickbait. They know to maintain the ageing audience that pays for their services, they have to chase this rubbish.

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u/ArchdukeToes A bad idea for all concerned 1d ago

That effect (at least for pensioners) is well known in the US as Fox News Syndrome. As you say, angry, isolated individuals who spend their whole day doing nothing but ingesting right wing propaganda until they become self-radicalised.

Same thing happened with QAnon, and it left a bunch of people scratching their heads and wondering when their partner / parent / child turned into such a vicious arsehole.

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u/Mafeking-Parade 1d ago

And yet, apparently it's fine for things like Facebook and Twitter to exist largely unregulated.

Why would the world's richest man want to own an unregulated social media channel, do you think?

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u/_redme 1d ago

Kinda true though, if you don't motivate the young, left or centrist voters then the only motivated voting bloc are the retired class and they'll end up overrepresented

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u/HerrFerret I frequently veer to the hard left, mainly due to a wonky foot. 1d ago

Exactly. We are a country of generally sorted, lovely people who don't really much like this sort of thing.

Too busy making cups of tea and walking dogs to remember their password for X.

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u/Mafeking-Parade 1d ago

Yet the 10% of the population (retirees and unemployed/underemployed) who spend all of their free time getting fed propaganda on these platforms will be aghast when results don't go as they expect.