Bomb scares result in polarized social chatter
Police, FBI and other emergency workers gather outside the Time Warner Center in New York City after an explosive device was found Wednesday morning at CNN’s office in the building. Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Posted by Brandon Boatwright
After several bombs were mailed to prominent politicians and public figures on Wednesday and Thursday, there have been multiple calls to soften the political discourse. Unfortunately, it appears some of those calls have gone unheralded on social media.
A word cloud indicating that many social media users call the bomb scare ‘politicized.’
A deeper dive into our analysis found tweets and other social media posts that politicized the suspicious packages.
This beginning to sound like the elaboration of a bad lie. We have not heard if there were actual explosives in these devices. The list & timing are suspect. And we won’t know who did this but Rep will be blamed (just before polling) 🤔 @adamcurry https://t.co/BNVyGYlEhv
— Elenctic FC (@suomicitizen) October 25, 2018
We should point out that these tweets only account for a small portion of the more than 535,000 posts related to the bombs, but posts such as these have been shared so many times that these narratives have begun to shape the social conversation to a degree.
Trump tweets at 7:18 am this morning and blames the #bombscare and anger on mainstream media news
He tweets on hateful content but take NO blame himself – although there are 1000s of recordings of him spewing hate
FBI warns more bombs are possibly still in the mail system https://t.co/wRPg4wDZPf
— Gamora🔥💖 (@exoticgamora) October 25, 2018
In such volatile and polarizing times, it’s important to keep in mind how far a single tweet can go toward influencing the broader conversation. Spreading messages of unity might be a good start.