The Week on TwitterTopical

The Week on Twitter: The Referendum, Dogs at Polling Stations & Star Wars Day

By Louisa McGrath

This week Twitter continued to take decisions in favour of equality as, according to The Guardian, the multinational banned promoted tweets which were being used to advertise the message of white supremacists on the social media website. Andrew Auernheimer advertised a number of tweets before Twitter banned them, because of their hate content. Last month, Twitter deleted many accounts containing ISIS propaganda; the company also showed its support for marriage equality after its vice-president in Ireland, Stephen McIntyre, spoke out in support of a Yes vote in this month’s referendum.

 

Heated Debate #rtept #MarRef #SSM

On Tuesday night it seemed that RTÉ’s Prime Time debate on marriage equality was all tweeters were talking about. The panel had three speakers from each campaign; Marriage Equality’s Grainne Healy and Noel Whelan, as well as Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald represented the Yes side, while journalist John Waters, David Quinn of the Iona Institute and Eileen King of Mothers and Fathers Matter represented the No campaign. The debate began in a normal fashion with all panel members being polite, calm and collected, but as the arguments wore on the voices got louder and louder to the point that it was impossible to hear a word that was being said.

Prime Time trended in Ireland as people took notice of the debate. The discussion was mainly centred around children’s rights. The No side was accused of avoiding the topic. Meanwhile both sides were seen as hysterical by some viewers.

This was one of the more lively debates on marriage equality so far.

Many Irish celebrities, such as Aidan Gillen and Cillian Murphy, have come out in support of a Yes vote in the run up to the Marriage Equality Referendum taking place later this month. Most recently, the beloved Robert Sheehan came out of hiding to promote a Yes vote via Twitter. The video that he posted to his account earlier this week was well-received to say the least.

The much loved Mrs Doyle is also calling for #Equalitea through a Yes vote.

 

Stars, Stars, Stars #StarWarsDay #MayThe4thBeWithYou #MetGala

Monday was May 4th, or what has become affectionately known as Star Wars Day. The two terms trended worldwide throughout the day as people celebrated the renowned movie, creating just more of a build up to the new release in December.

Monday night also saw a variety of celebrities attend the Met Gala in New York City. As most coverage of the famous ball discusses nothing but the attendees, here is a brief background of the event so you’ll know for next year what all the fuss is about. The Met Gala, or Met Ball, is the annual fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. It also marks the grand opening of the Costume Institute’s annual fashion exhibit. The gala has taken place every year since 1946 and has become the biggest event of the year for celebrities and designers to show off their style.

Every year the gala has a theme that coincides with the exhibition and guests are supposed to pick their outfit to match this theme. On Monday night Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez caught the media’s attention with their see-through gowns. Rihanna may have looked a little bit like Big Bird, but at least her outfit was in keeping with this year’s exhibition theme, which was China.

 

Ruff Results for Labour #GE2015

The British general election occupied the majority of Twitter trends this week. The most interesting of these trending topics occurred on the morning of the election; #DogsAtPollingStations trended as English voters pondered over whether they would be allowed to take their digs to the polling stations. Evidently the answer was yes, as hundreds of Brits subsequently shared photos of their dogs at polling stations.

https://twitter.com/andrewlowson/status/596283746288009216

The results of the election had both shocking elements, as well as expected ones. As predicted the Scottish Nationalist Party had a landslide victory winning 56 out of a potential 59 seats. Although the Labour Party expected huge losses in Scotland, it was not prepared for as many losses elsewhere. Votes for the Conservative Party and Labour were not nearly as close as expected, which has left the Labour Party reeling and allowed the Tories to go into government alone. David Cameron plans to continue with a programme of austerity in England, beginning with £12 billion of welfare cuts. There will be an independent inquiry into the inaccuracy of the election poll results.

Ed Miliband is stepping down as leader of the Labour Party and Nick Clegg is resigning as leader of the Lib Dems after disastrous results for the party. Nigel Farage also resigned as leader of UKIP after failing to win a seat. Despite getting 4 million votes, only one UKIP politician won a seat due to the ‘First Past the Post’ voting system used in the UK. Comedian Al Murray also trended on Twitter after his reaction to  Nigel Farage’s loss. Al Murray ran for his party FUKP in the same constituency as Nigel Farage.

Louisa McGrath 31 posts 0 comments

Louisa is a freelance writer based in Dublin. Having graduated from DIT, she is now scrambling to leave student life behind and establish herself in the world of journalism. Tweeting from @LouisaMcGrath

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