Public protests are an essential feature of democracy – or an occupational hazard, depending on your perspective. There is evidence that they have become more common over the last two decades and we are now living in a period of major upheaval, similar to the 1960s. But do they change anything? When people get out in the streets and blast airhorns and hold up placards, does public opinion shift in the protesters’ favour?
That’s what two economists sought to find out. Amory Gethin and Vincent Pons analysed data covering 110,000 protests in the U.S. since 2017. These data were taken from the crowd counting consortium – a volunteer project that collates publicly available figures on the size of political crowds. Of course, most protests are small, attracting only a few hundred participants. But some are much larger, with crowds in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
Interestingly, a single issue – racism – accounted for 27% of all protests. And in fact, 84% of protests were for ‘liberal’ or Left-wing causes, while only 14% were for conservative or Right-wing causes. This huge disparity is presumably due in part to factors like conservatives being older and more likely to live in rural areas.
To assess the political impact of protests, the authors analysed data from Twitter, Google and several nationwide surveys. The surveys included questions on things like vote intention, presidential approval and the most important issue facing the country – allowing Gethin and Pons to see whether protests are associated with shifts in public opinion.
The authors began by comparing tweets, Google searches and measures of public opinion before and after the start of each protest movement. They then used a ‘difference-in-difference’ approach – comparing the change in tweets, Google searches and measures of public opinion in counties that saw more versus less protest activity. What did they find?
In short, the only movement that had a discernible political impact was Black Lives Matter. All the others led to spikes in tweets and Google searches but left no real mark on public opinion. This can be seen in the chart below, which shows results for vote intention (Trump versus someone else) and presidential approval. Only the George Floyd protests are reliably associated with shifts in public opinion.
It seems that if the goal is to affect some kind of political change, most public protests are a waste of time. And note: the argument that “if we don’t protest then only the other side’s message will get heard” doesn’t work. As mentioned, 84% of protests were for ‘liberal’ or Left-wing causes; one side is doing almost all the protesting.
Of course, individual protesters might have other goals like achieving a sense of belonging or taking part in a collective ritual – and for them, attending protests would not be a waste of time.
Gethin and Pons’s findings indicate that, with one notable exception, even large protests have surprisingly little impact on public opinion. Rather than attending protests, budding activists might be better off writing to their political representative or trying to win round friends and family.
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First rule of Fight Club…
Reason.? Pragmatism and Patience.
Agreed. Musk is between a rock and a hard place, walking a tightrope, whatever image you prefer. With the risk of being fined up to 6% of Twitter’s global revenues IIRC, it’s difficult to see what alternative he has right now. I think he’s biding his time.
Yes, Twitter has to abide by the EU rules, they have no choice…and whether it’s better to be on the inside or not, I don’t know….
As far as using Twitter..it’s miles better under Musk…much more free..and despite what Mr Kogan says, huge numbers of censored and banned people I used to follow have returned….as for all of Elon’s other ‘pies’, I would have to look at each one separately and decide…why can’t he be right on some things, and wrong also…like a normal person? It seems to me that he’s being held to a higher bar than is usual…
Whether he’s for free speech or not, I will wait for the evidence..which currently looks good….it’s a fact that he released the Twitter files…and frankly I don’t remember people being so wound up when Jack Dorsey was ‘hiding’ the Hunter Biden files, or censoring anything Republican or Conservative..or banning any one who didn’t stick to the scamdemic agenda??…….as I say I’ll await further evidence…
Elon Musk EUSSR’s double agent
************************************
Stand in the Park Make friends & keep sane
Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am
Elms Field
near play area
Wokingham RG40 2FE
European Union of soviet socialist Republics????
I’m not going to downtick, but what are you trying to say?
Should be obvious.
And Musk is no fan of free speech; I can’t say this enough.
He can only fight so many enemies at once given the parlous finances of twitter. Have community notes started to appear on misinformation tweeted by EU officials yet?
…and run a rocket company and EV company.
Doesn’t the article more or less answer its own question?
Not a musk fan then Robert?
I’m not bothered one way or the other.
Musk’s way is better than it was, that’s about it!
My view is that Musk is relishing the opportunity of being taken to court so that these ill defined terms like dis and misinformation can be more closely examined by legal professionals.
Hopefully a judge will find the wording of the Digital Services Act to be nebulous, open to individual interpretation and political bias and therefore unenforceable.
Lets hope you’re right.
We see a lot reporting about Twitter’s collusion with the US government during the covid debacle, but nothing about the UK government and its dealings with social media.
Perhaps ‘our’ Matt did not have that much sway with the American tech company?
I can understand Musk’s predicament with Twitter, but kowtowing to these authoritarians won’t make them leave you alone.
Shadowbanning is far more insidious than overt censorship because it leaves the victim with no recourse to complain, act on it, or even to be aware they’re being censored. Its effect is a gradual demoralisation into silence, despair and compliance.
Then as some topics of ‘misinformation’ become very much information, when the walls of misdirection and propaganda can no longer hold back the truth; the point where more people than just the attentive and paranoid would finally speak out and protest, you end up instead with tumbleweeds and an apathetic population holding up their hands, saying “I know, but what can we do?”.
As a couple of people on here have said, it’s not confusing if you realise Musk is not on our side.
Does anyone who is awake actually think a person like Musk could even exist if his side wasn’t backing him?
His role is that of the Fool or Jester. He tells truths but in the end he is still part of the tyrant’s court. He will attract and mollify the peasants by telling them what they want to hear but in the end he still serves the powers.
He says watch out for AI then starts his own AI.
He calls for free speech, yet censors more than ever before.
He experiments on and kills monkeys in his transhumanist religious desires to have humans patch to computers.
He is in charge of the primary company that is trying to ram driverless vehicles on to humanity.
He runs starlink which is creating a grid of satellites around the planet which will aid total surveillance control over humanity.
He throws it in our faces when he wears a Demon costume.
He is not our friend. He is a false hero, like Trump.
The information/disinformation wars aren’t just about Musk……
I also note that Seymour Hersh has been ‘fact-checked’ by Facebook, in regards to his Nordstream theory article…
This article is worth a read..and I think goes to the heart of the censorship we are dealing with….
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/04/21/why-is-facebook-censoring-sy-hershs-nordstream-report/
As of Thursday, if you try to share on Facebook the February 8 Substack post in which Hersh first laid out the anonymously sourced charge, you’ll first be met with a prompt informing you about “additional reporting” on the subject in the form of Norwegian fact-checking website Faktisk, and warning you that “pages and websites that repeatedly publish or share false news will see their overall distribution reduced and be restricted in other ways.”
If you decide to “share anyway,” Hersh’s piece is posted but blurred out, and labeled “false information” by the social media platform. (It’s since been un blurred and labeled “partly false information”). “
…..But Seymour Hersh can and does post on Twitter…..!
Using Ocham’s razor the issue is not Musk but the EU.
…Occams…
….absolutely…undoubtedly they are a huge problem. I think Musk has been less than ‘kind’ about them…tin pot Hitlers…
Better inside the tent pissing out, possibly
Twitter has just given Britain First a gold checkmark. I’m not sure what that means as I don’t use Twitter, but it doesn’t sound like a telling off! Would that have happened previously? I doubt it – in fact I think they were banned.