0.4% of adults are responsible for 73% of political tweeting. And 75% of the 0.4% are far left.

I have been saying this for a long time. The mainstream media are especially prone to bubbles and seem to be especially susceptible to Twitter bubbles and academia bubbles. The nonsense from those sources get amplified by the gullible MSM and then it all seems real. Except that it is not.

Most people rub along pretty well with most other people. They spend more time on sports than they do on politics. They are way more polite than anything you will see on late night or the news. Polarization? Climate Change? Race Relations? Patriarchy? Rape Culture? White Privilege? All of it and much more is simply the product of a very few, very loud voices in a handful of places blown all out of proportion.

Here is some supporting evidence for that contention. From Just 6% of US adults on Twitter account for 73% of political tweets… and they disapprove of Trump by Sarah Perez.

As a baseline:

Only 22% of U.S. adults even have a Twitter account, and of those, only 31% are defined as “political tweeters” — that is, they’ve posted at least five tweets and have posted at least twice about politics during the study period.

Within this broader group of political tweeters, just 6% are defined as “prolific” — meaning they’ve posted at least 10 tweets and at least 25% of their tweets mention national politics.

This small subset then goes on to create 73% of all tweets from U.S. adults on the subject of national politics.

6% X 31% % 22% = 0.4%

0.4% of Americans are responsible for 73% of all political tweets. What would you like to wager as to the degree to which that 0.4% are representative of Americans at large?

What’s concerning about the data is that it’s those who are either far to the left or far to the right who are the ones dominating the political conversation on Twitter’s platform. A majority of the prolific political tweeters (55%) say they identify as either “very liberal” or “very conservative.” Among the non-political tweeting crowd, only 28% chose a more polarized label for themselves.

This polarized subgroup also heavily leans left. For example, those who strongly approve of President Trump generated 25% of all tweets mentioning national politics. But those who strongly disapprove of Trump generated 72% of all tweets mentioning national politics. (They’re also responsible for 80% of all tweets from U.S. adults on the platform.)

So 0.3% of the 0.4% are far left. And they are who set the mainstream media agenda. A tiny unrepresentative fraction of the great American commonweal.

You wake up in the morning and look at some of the headlines which seem far adrift not only from reality but from commonsense and you think "How on earth could they be writing this nonsense). Look no further than the 0.3% of far left shouter oon Twitter.