Duran Barba: "Twitter is a bag of mad fanatical cats"

-Jaime, let me get into your favorite topic, which is social networks and polarization. I want to read you a report from Duke University, which has recruited hundreds of very active Democrats and Republicans on Twitter. They paid everyone to follow a Twitter bot that retweeted opposite content (that is, Democrats to a Republican bot and vice versa). After a while, they came back to study their political ideas and it was found that the Democrats had not changed much, but that the Republicans were becoming more Republicans. And the conclusion of this study by Duke is that, ultimately, exposure to information contrary to the ideas of the people expresses his ideas and is not changed. So, finally, one could, starting from this badysis and bringing it back to Argentina, say that part of the hatred sparked by Cristina Kirchner in many of those who do not want her to come back can be the result of an exposure to information in favor of Cristina Kirchner, against the ideas of these people and not, as was supposed, that the ideological bias is reinforced by the receipt of favorable information. In other words, today, it hates with the amount of favorable information reported by the media, addicted to Cristina Kirchner. Does such an idea seem plausible?

– That's good so, we've experimentally verified it.

Let's distinguish things. In networks, there are very different platforms with different types of people. Twitter is a bag of crazy fanatic cats. Do not move a vote, Twitter. This is perhaps the most wonderful trend topic … it's useless. Our advice to politicians is to erase Twitter. Do not read it, you waste your time fighting with totally defined types. The result is the famous idea of ​​trolls, which many ignorant totalitarian governments hired, thinking it was good for something. Engaging a troll, it's like buying a high precision rifle and asking a person to go on a rabbit hunt with a rifle butt on a hill. It's stupid, it's useless. On Twitter, there are people who are fanatical by definition, that's why they are there, and they insult, scream and kick, and it's useless.

There are other totally different networks, Instagram, Facebook, which serve to connect you with people who are not part of political fanaticism. And in each of them, there are different job opportunities, even if you also work on Instagram and Facebook. Each one has its peculiarities and you have to know what to do with them. More and more, it seems that sending messages is also useless. The experience in Ecuador was huge. Those who move the elections are people who send messages by themselves.

– They are irremovable, the people you say are crystallized people.

-The Twitter.

-Now, how do you explain, since you attach great importance to this chaos generated by social networks, that most people with a very anti-Kirchner attitude, if you wish, are at the same time more people. older, less than we badume in social networks?

-I do not know if there is a link between one thing and another, but back to what you said a while ago, it's very important: a lot of people are reacting in favor of who is attacked. If I receive a message against Cristina Fernández and support her, it is not that I change: I become difficult.

– I mean, it would be the case of Macri, that you said that it was hardened recently, also because they started to criticize it.

– The little song that was made helped a lot, because a lot of people said "How do you say that to the president?" He is very bad.

The subject is also very complex because, in a first reaction, old politicians think that putting Cristina's daughter in prison is an excellent idea. It's a brutality, you victimize it and it gives a crazy vote. It does not work like that

– Is there a link between the emergence of the Tea Party in the United States? and that of antikirchnerism in Argentina?

No

In the case of the Tea Party, this is the continuing exposure of conservatives to progressive ideas that they have not accepted.

-The Tea Party was born before with a complex social base. In the last Trump election, which I studied a lot at university, there is a good area that says, "I am white, man, heterobadual, why am I discriminated against?" To protect yourself, you have to be black, or a woman, or homobadual, a minority, etc. "There is an extreme right that reacts to the guarantees of minorities.

-The same thing that would happen in Brazil with Bolsonaro.

Yes

Duran Barba: "If Cristina Kirchner loses these elections, her political career poses serious problems"

– That is, the exposure of progressive ideas to conservatives makes them more conservative.

– Especially when the people who run the progressive ideas do things too brutal. I am certainly a supporter of women's rights, I have always written for women, but I do not like seeing women stoning a Catholic temple either. I am not a Catholic, but I do not have to attack them. The same thing happens with homobaduals, it seems to me that it's perfect for homobaduals to have their rights, to do what they want. But sometimes you see protests and things that say "like a little excessive, why build so much jelly?" .

JDI CP