How Twitter got involved in the EU Referendum

June 22 2016

By @G_Parsons33

Published in Trends

The Brexit debate has been raging on social media for the run-up to the referendum, and nowhere more so than on Twitter. Millions of tweets have been posted over the past month, but how has Twitter contributed to the debate? With the final vote just a day away, we looked back at some of Twitter’s Brexit highlights, and how the social network has been involved in the EU Referendum campaigning.

9 million tweets and counting

The volumes of activity around Brexit on Twitter are impressive: over the past 30 days, over 9 million tweets have been posted:

Over nine million tweets have been posted about Brexit over the past 30 days

It’s hardly surprising: the referendum is a decision that will majorly affect the lives of future generations not just in the UK, but the world over. The referendum has been constantly trending on Twitter over the past month, appearing dozens of times for various reasons, such as for the Thames Flotilla fiasco between Nigel Farage and Bob Geldof, Tory MP Sarah Wollaston’s defection from the Vote Leave side, John Oliver’s Brexit video, or David Beckham’s announcement that he would choose to vote Remain.

The social network has provided a platform for hundreds of thousands of people to express their opinions on the topic, including celebrities such as JK Rowling, Richard Branson, Emma Watson and Idris Elba.

Twitter has been a major information hub during the debate. Widely used by both the national and international press, the network has been used to promote thousands of articles, columns and blog posts over the past month by the world’s most influential media.

The platform has also brought together content from other social networks: debates broadcasted using Facebook Live, political commentary via Youtube, photos on Instagram, and more:

The opposing sides hashtag it out

Twitter’s fast-moving, public nature makes it ideal for political campaigning. The Leave and Remain sides have been making the most of the social network’s features, using a plethora of hashtags and Twitter handles to rally people to their cause.

So who’s winning? It’s difficult to tell: dozens of hashtags have been created around each side of the campaign. Any attempt at analysis is made even more complicated by the fact that certain ones, such as #Brexit, are used neutrally to refer to the EU referendum, especially in the media. If we use Visibrain Quick Trends to compare the top 5 hashtags for each (not including #Brexit), it looks like a clear majority for Vote Leave:

A comparison of tweet volumes for the top hashtags around the Vote Leave and Vote Remain campaigns

(Wasim Ahmed, PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield, wrote an in-depth analysis of the hashtags around Brexit.)

However, it’s no secret that the Vote Leave campaign is extremely active on social media, especially Twitter: @vote_leave has been getting on average ten times more retweets than the @StrongerIn official Twitter account over the past month. The sheer volumes around Vote Leave may be impressive, but the data doesn’t necessarily reflect the reality of public opinion.

Getting the public to vote

Getting people to take an interest, and show up to vote, is always a challenge in politics, and the EU referendum was no exception.

Twitter played its part in getting people to vote, launching a new emoji to go with the #EURefReady hashtag, to encourage people to register for the referendum. The hashtag has been used 40,043 times over the past 30 days. The #registertovote and #voterregistration hashtags also got high tweet volumes.

The hashtags that were used to encourage people to vote in the referendum

It certainly seemed to work. During the run up to the resgistration deadline, the link to the “Register to vote” page of the UK government website was shared 141,613 times on Twitter:

The number of times the link to the voter registration website was shared on Twitter

It wasn’t all plain sailing for campaigners on Twitter. Stronger In’s #Votin campaign was met with scorn:

The #Votin hashtag has been used just 7,208 times since May 24th.

Boosting interest around debates

Twitter has also done its bit to encourage the public to follow and comment on Brexit debates. A good example is the ITV debate between David Cameron and Nigel Farage on June 7th, which got a great following on Twitter: over 200,000 tweets in one evening. The #ITVEURef hashtag was used 149,839 times on the night. You can read our full analysis of Twitter activity around the referendum debate on our blog.

People also used Twitter to follow more local debates. In Yorkshire, the #EURefYorks hashtag was used by locals and MPs to comment on the debate:

The Brexit debate will doubtless continue right up until tomorrow’s vote and beyond, depending on the results.

It’s certainly interesting to see how intensely Twitter has been used in the discussion around Brexit. Proof, if any was needed, of how social media is becoming an inescapable part of the political sphere.

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Published in Trends