Should People Depend on Twitter Numbers to Determine Elections Outcome?

Cillizza C. (2021 Nov 17). Why everyone should pay less attention to political Twitter. CNN Politics: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/17/politics/twitter-politics-audience-pew/index.html  

Cilliza argues that it is not right to make conclusions based on the state of social media use in the country. He cites examples from the recently concluded elections in the United States where the trends reported on Twitter were contrary to the actual state of voting across the country. This argument is also backed up by the data analyzed by a research firm called Pew Research Center. According to the research firm, only 1 out of 4 Americans use Twitter. Comparing these numbers to the actual number of voters across the country indicates that Twitter may only represent the views of a small number of voters. Further analysis of this state indicates that inaccuracies may also arise due to the small number of original posts while a majority are retweets followed by replies. Combining the three components gives rise to the total Twitter engagement rate.

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