Figures released by Twitter suggest that political engagement more than doubled on the social media platform since the 2017 election.
Since the dissolution of Parliament in November, 18.8 million election tweets were sent, what Twitter called a “significant 106% increase” in conversation since 2017’s general election.
Throughout polling day, #YouthQuake, #BeAVoter, and #IVoted rose in popularity, with celebrities including Stormzy and Harry Styles sending political tweets.
The most-tweeted emojis on election day were the rose symbol to signify the Labour Party, the Union Jack flag, and the crying-with-laughter face.
A spokeswoman for Twitter said: “With a tweets-per-minute spike of 10,400 greeting the exit poll at 10.05pm, and 1.6m unique authors tweeting, the trends on the night soon proved to be the personalities, human stories and fast-changing facts which are at the core of Twitter.
“Almost every trending term from 10pm until 7am was either the name of a politician involved in a development, or a constituency where a surprising result was happening.”
Despite polls giving the Conservatives a majority, figures show that Jeremy Corbyn dominated Twitter conversation by 70% on polling day, compared with 26% for Boris Johnson.
With all 650 results declared on Friday, the Conservatives had 365 seats, while Labour were on 203, a net loss of 42.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel