I can’t claim this sentence as mine, it does however explain the online research [with comments attached] that I do to gauge public opinion for blog posts. The tendency to rely on social media to gauge public sentiment simply rewards the outraged, entitled and narcissistic.

Now, while I was aware the chattering classes tend to be very vocal on social media, the more outraged, the more demanding the more condescending they tend to be. The more conservative tend to avoid social media, this can be either extreme left leaning or right leaning ideology. I have no time for either of these extremes, I certainly do not wish to push my views on others.

This is rather an unusual view of someone who publishes a blog. Not really, I have my viewpoints, what I don’t do is push my viewpoints onto others. My blog is observational, I take a view of the world on comment based on my perspectives – they might not necessarily be correct. They are sincere, these are my views based on my perspectives, I absolutely respect the views of people who have vastly different life experiences to myself who have formed differing views of society, human behaviour and contemporary issues.

Twitter is a war zone, the left-leaning zealots attack any views that are not aligned to their skewed narrative. The moderate views are drowned out, at this point it doesn’t appear to change community perceptions. It is just a bunch of nutters carrying like outspoken fools trying to change public perspective – they generally don’t.

This doesn’t stop pollsters trying to gauge public opinion from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. This is not a gauge of public opinion, this is noisy just individuals that flood comments sections with vile comments and bullying type behaviour. Any media outlet that gives credence to these comments lacks the ability to engage in sound analysis and commentary. I certainly respect alternative viewpoints that are correctly researched and rely on a degree of analysis.