Photo: OLIVIER DOULIERY / AFP / Getty Images
By: EFE Updated 28 Apr 2022, 18: 34 pm EDT
WASHINGTON – The language used on Twitter by members of the United States Congress between 2009 and 2019 reflects an increase of 23 % in profanity between legislators, especially Democrats, according to a study published this Thursday.
The tweets about former president Donald Trump (2019-2021) largely account for the deteriorating manners in Congress, said Robb Willer, from Stanford University (California) and one of the co-authors of the study.
—Society for Personality and Social Psychology (@SPSPnews) April 28, 2022
Researchers used artificial intelligence to examine some 1.3 million Twitter messages sent by members of Congress in the search to identify the content rude, which they define as expressions that observers would typically qualify as rude or offensive.
Although vulgarity and profanity are found in public language throughout the Across the political spectrum, the study found that disrespect between members of the Senate and House of Representatives was most noticeable among more “progressive” Democrats ”.
This partisan difference could be explained, in part at least, by the reactions of e former president Trump, the researchers conjecture.
A team of researchers, also led by Jeremy Frimer of the University of Winnipeg, found that the messages The most angry tweets are the ones that receive the most “likes” and are forwarded with the greatest enthusiasm.
The fact that the most inflamed tweets cause more stir in social network does not necessarily mean that they receive more approval , indicated the authors of the article in the Social Psychological and Personality Science magazine.
“Rude tweets are likely to receive more likes because they are forwarded so much that they reach many more people” Willer indicated.
In January 2021 The New York Times newspaper published a compilation of hundreds of vilifications and provocative expressions in Twitter messages sent by Trump since 2009 announced his candidacy for the presidential candidacy.
During the presidential campaign of 2016, Trump tweeted about 8,000 times and in the course of his presidency he did so a few 57,000 times, until he was banned from that social network in the final days of his term, according to an analysis by the CNN television network.
Others Previous studies have shown that, despite the harm that disrespectful language can cause, its use can help politicians draw attention to specific issues, receive contributions of money and excite their supporters.
“Our investigation cannot establish whether this trend is good or bad”, clarified Willer. “People must come to their own conclusions on this matter. We are interested in analyzing the toxicity in long-term political discourse”.
T and may be interested:
– How to deactivate and delete your Twitter account
– Twitter: why has Elon Musk been so interested in taking control of the social network?
– Twitter revealed what the new button to edit tweets will look like