Tuesday, July 20, 2010

When Ministers Tweet Falsely

Update: This gentleman may be the Adam referred to in Clement's post from earlier today. If all of Tony's refs were pseuds, then I will look silly and have to issue an apology. We shall see. Although his origonal tweet is not indexed in politwitter, though one or two later ones are.

Origonal post starts here:

So Tony Clement has been sending tweets thanking various supporters of the government's position on the long form for indicating their support on twitter. I've written about it here. The Minister has also said that he will not identify these supportive twitterers because he is worried they might get verbally abused for their support.

I thought about this this afternoon, and I suspect that these people he is referencing are not real, and I think the proof is that none of them show up in the right hand column of his page on politwitter. To test my theory, I sent an email to one of the people at politwitter. It ran as follows:

So here's Tony Clement tweeting about all the folks on twitter who support his census long-form decision. But none of their names come up in the right hand column (tweets to Tony). Is that possible? In other words, if you send a tweet to someone using Ptwitter, should it not ALWAYS appear in the right hand column. (And may I reproduce your response) at bigcitylibstrikesback?

And I recieved the following response from Trevor May:

You don't have to use Politwitter to send the tweet for it to showup. Polit[w]itter indexes ALL tweets. And yes the right-hand column shows all tweets that are directed at the user with @username in the tweet text.

Yes you can use it as an example.


So let me repeat this. If you sign up for politwitter, anyone that sends you a tweet gets indexed. But nobody using the names Tony has mentioned have been indexed, at least back until last Thursday. Either Tony didn't receive these communications from these people by twitter, or the people sending them used pseudonyms, or he didn't receive them at all.

15 comments:

Harbles said...

Of course Tony Gazebo had to produce at least one supporter who would be willing to be Identified.

"TonyClement_MP Thx @grazen for ur DM allowing me to use ur tag as a supporter of our census position.Some people R so self-righteous they deny ur real!"

@grazen replies

Aces bro! RT @TonyClement_MP: Canadians are contacting me, thankful that someone is standing up for them, vs. more intrusion + coercion.

So I had to ask

Harbles @grazen Hi. U seem like Technologically enlightened person. R U just supporting the #cpc or do u actually buy @TonyClement_MP 's story?

I'll keep u posted.
And I promise to be polite

Ted Betts said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ted Betts said...

Harbles:

Did @grazen show up in the right hand column?

bigcitylib said...

No he doesn't; but the tweet seems to be from 12 hours ago, and the guy is named Adam (one of the names CC mentions).

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Harbles said...

Trying to keep it civil.

Tony has another friend this one very interesting.

TonyClement_MP Thank you RT @johnsonWilliam I absolutely, categorically support @TonyClement_MP on the #census issue. #cdnpoli

I responded.
Harbles @johnsonWilliam http://bit.ly/bXwOVG Really!? Sorry to be intrusive and invasive but could you write a quick blog entry on this? Thanks!

To which he kindly replied
johnsonWilliam @Harbles Will do! Gimme some time okay.

And I said
Harbles @johnsonWilliam 'K thanks!

Seem like a nice guy.

Grazen on the other hand
grazen @Aaron_Sheldon @TonyClement_MP You have no idea re: my contributions. Your sense of entitlement and elitism is why Tony needs to prevail.

Don't big time financial guys use statistics all the time and should know all about fudged data?

bigcitylib said...

Johnsonwilliams proclaimed his love only a few minutes ago. He can't be one of the names Tony mentioned earlier.

Terence said...

there's an old expression used widely in Mulroney's days......Tories are liars and liars are conservatives. It is coming back in spades.

Harbles said...

Just for continuity as for any other reason, the concluding episode of the saga.

Grazen replies to Me et al..
grazen @Harbles @TonyClement_MP In general I don't support more govt intrusions for the sake of expediency. Don't know what other story there is.

He then comment's to Mr. C
grazen @TonyClement_MP I'm real and your opponents are vocal. Taking the moral choice in the face of a vocal minority is not easy. Thank-you.

My reposte.
Harbles @grazen Expediency? nevermind. So in your opinion loosing the randomness of the sample is no big deal?

His response.
grazen @Harbles Stastical expediency < people's privacy and time. Take what you have and adjust. Peoples lives are not your modeling tools.

My response
Harbles @grazen privacy not really an issue for all previous census'. I support your right to your opinion. I wish you and your clients luck.

And so it goes...

Harbles said...

And the parting shot
grazen @Harbles Privacy wasn't an issue b/c they had no choice. We'll C if privacy is an issue by measuring compliance rates now. Best to you too.

I have no words and am unable to respond. He's got me.
Compliance rates with voluntary census. Hmmm?

bigcitylib said...

See,and the guy seems to have been involved in research for investment bankers. I bet for most of his career he's been within two steps of long form data. So, if costs go up replacing census data with crappier private sector equivalents, they probably go up for his business.

Mark Richard Francis said...

I've been sending Clement stuff on twitter for a few days.

I'll share my personal data with accountable government, not unaccountable corps. #census #cdnpoli @TonyClement_MP http://bit.ly/aPJxC8
5:25 PM Jul 16th via TweetDeck

#fraserinstitute "scrap long census form as too cheap for users"; @TonyClement_MP "$30 mil more for voluntary method" http://bit.ly/aPJxC8 4:47 PM Jul 16th via TweetDeck

Dear @TonyClement_MP Thx for supporting conservative civil liberties: Long census bad, 1105 illegal arrests good! #cdnpoli #g20
1:41 PM Jul 16th via TweetDeck

Dear @TonyClement_MP Think you can get Flaherty to follow along and make income tax forms voluntary? http://bit.ly/cEd0XV 1:05 PM Jul 16th via TweetDeck


He's likely ignoring me 'cause I'm a member of the chattering classes.

Ted Betts said...

Hmmmm. Gives me an idea.

Hey BCL, remember a little while ago a certain group twitter effort that resulted in taking over and shutting down the Blogging Tories twitter feed for a while?

Steve V said...

Good stuff BCL!!

Rod Murray said...

I sent a tweet to Clement Tuesday supporting the reinstatement of the Long Form, daring Clement to retweet my opposition to his policy. So far, no response, but he did send a follow request.