Expanded Tweet - Telegraph Oxford Internet Institute #oii_telegraph

This post is to get back on track with the issues. The tweets have got stuck on whether or not "big mouth jimmy" is a robot. I have had several tweets denying it and complaining that I ask the question. Then another one from Ben Nimmo with stats that make a case the account is "botlike".

However my most recent tweet, possibly not seen by Ben Nimmo, was in response to his retweet of a link from Phil Howard, agreeing that "Bots, fake accounts, and active campaigns of distortion and misinformation erode open participation and democratic discourse." ( btw Phil Howard is an Oxford prof, I don't know how his views fit with the Telegraph article but there is some link with Ben Nimmo at least as far as to check tweets )

The impression from the Telegraph story was that the apparent Labour support on social media could be explained by unfair robots, unusually active for Labour supporting views. I personally cannot find the support for this in the evidence published by the Oxford Internet Institute.

Ben Nimmo pinned tweet suggests balance as a test for fake news. Is it possible that young people are using social media and support Corbyn because they are fed up with newspapers and politics as usual. "distortion and misinformation" could be seen as an aspect of the EU referendum that has continued in reporting on Corbyn and during this election. This was not considered in the story as published.

Newspapers will have to coexist with social media. They have to offer some credibility for further communication. just my opinion.

Still on topic for the blog, the Telegraph story final paragraph (page 4 from front page story lists the Labour team for EU negotiations. They are all "staunch Remain supporters".