Misogyny, Wikileaks, James Comey and Russia have all been trotted out as reasons for Hillary Clinton’s election loss to Donald Trump.
One study now thinks there’s a new reason why Trump won — Twitter. A study from the University of Edinburgh points to Twitter users as having a heavy pro-Trump slant.
The study profiled 50 viral election tweets every day for 68 days before the election, USA Today reports.
The report reveals that pro-Trump content dominated Twitter, stating, “two-thirds of the 3,450 viral tweets — which were retweeted about 26 million times — either attacked Clinton (39%) or supported Trump (23%). The other third either supported Clinton (14%) or attacked Trump (19%).”
Other interesting findings include the fact that Clinton’s Twitter account spent more time criticizing Trump than promoting herself, with a reported 331 positive tweets about herself, and 363 that attacked Trump. Trump did the reverse of this, with his account showing 446 pro-Trump tweets and 246 anti-Clinton ones.
Finally, USA Today reports that on 85 percent of the days leading up to the election profiled on Twitter, pro-Trump tweets had more retweets than pro-Clinton tweets.
During the election, Twitter was home to an eclectic mix of pro-Trump content from conservatives, libertarians, and some members of the “alt-right.” This group often utilized memes and trolling to criticize liberals and other perceived political opponents.
Trump engaged with his Twitter fans directly at times, including re-tweeting a YouTube link of a humorous video, “You Can’t Stump The Trump,” which edited clips of future President Trump “stumping” various opponents during the primary.
“@codyave: @drudgereport @BreitbartNews @Writeintrump “You Can’t Stump the Trump” https://t.co/0xITB7XeJV pic.twitter.com/iF6S05se2w“
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2015
Jeb Bush was a prominent target of mockery in these videos.
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