200 million Tweets about Brexit since referendum. Twitter issues tips on how to mute words.
More than 200 million tweets have been sent referencing Brexit since the result of the EU referendum was announced, according to figures from Twitter. And probably another 200 million more before we come to any kind of agreement!
The social media platform has published tips for users who may wish to hear less about the issue – including how to mute terms linked to Brexit – ahead of Parliament’s vote on the Withdrawal Agreement on Tuesday.
Approximately two-thirds of the tweets had been posted from the UK, Twitter said.
The social media site revealed statistics around discussion of the topic on its platform, including the most mentioned individuals and days that saw the greatest spike in conversation around Brexit.
Unsurprisingly, Prime Minister Theresa May was the most mentioned person linked to Brexit, ahead of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP David Lammy, Labour peer Andrew Adonis and former foreign secretary Boris Johnson.
According to the social media site, the days immediately following the referendum vote – June 23 to 28 – saw the largest spike in conversation, followed by November 9 2016 – the day after the US presidential election which saw Donald Trump’s victory compared to the Brexit vote.
15 November 2018 was also highlighted, the day after the prime minister announced the Cabinet had agreed to her draft withdrawal agreement which saw Brexit secretary Dominic Raab resign before Jacob Rees-Mogg submitted his letter of no confidence in the prime minister.
Twitter said it was encouraging those who had had enough of the news around Brexit to consider muting a range of terms before the pivotal vote in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
The term Brexit, as well as the names of political parties and party leaders were included in the list, alongside a range of terms linked to the debate such as “Article 50”, “single market”, “no deal” and “backstop”.
Twitter users can mute words, phrases and hashtags by going to the settings section of the app and selecting the Muted Words option, from which they can enter the phrases they wish to mute and set time limits for the chosen terms.
