Yet this vision of a Twitter populated by aggressive, confrontational personalities gives us only a partial view of reality. This is precisely what emerges from a survey conducted in the United States by the Pew Research Center and relayed by the online media Axios.
Outrage messages are more popular on Twitter
Thus, we can already see that Twitter is ultimately not very popular with only 25% of users across the Atlantic. And among the Internet users who go there only 30% indicate that they do so several times a day, while 56% say that they connect there much less frequently, without giving any further details.
We can learn something from these figures. Concretely, Twitter gives us a distorted view of the world. A small proportion of users tweet but their messages are sometimes massively shared, which considerably increases their impact.
This can often be a problem since, according to previous studies, we know that messages full of animosity towards political opponents are much more likely to be seen than those simply expressing ideas.
Moreover, through well-developed astroturfing strategies, anyone can succeed in launching a movement of opinion that is not always based on reality. Clearly, it is not a question here of rejecting any movement of mood or indignation on Twitter, and some can moreover be perfectly justified, but it must be borne in mind that there are risks of manipulation.
If the subject interests you, you can also reread our article devoted to an exciting study conducted by researchers at Yale University. They explain why outrage posts are much more likely to be shared on Twitter and social media in general.
