MADRID, SPAIN - DECEMBER 11: Swedish environment activist Greta Thunberg gives a speech at the ... [+]
In case you haven’t heard, the political right doesn’t like Greta Thunberg.
They’ve called the climate change activist bratty and undeserving of accolades. They’ve called her out for being a spokesperson for the dangers of climate change but without a scientific background. And, they don’t seem to like the way she speaks.
Donald Trump, Jr. is always one of the first to cast derision. Ho-hum on that one. It’s not at all surprising that the political divide causes discord on social media.
What is surprising is that, after Time named her the person of the year today, the flood of posts had nothing to do with American politics.
There seems to be a unified chorus of alarm over the publication not recognizing the protestors in Hong Kong. Left, right, center — every angle.
In a steady stream of outrage, the posts range from sarcastic rebuttals to a string of analytics reports, polls, and other supporting material.
I’m quite shocked, actually. I won’t reveal any political opinions here, but the truth is that the comments are clearly one-sided in support of the protestors, almost to the point where it makes you wonder if Time will change its tune.
Many of the comments seem genuinely disappointed. There’s definitely a theme: Most disagree with the choice. Here’s just a small sample of a printable comment:
In many posts, commenters are congratulating the activist with a hint of being disappointed and overlooked in most cases:
Hong Kong protestors won the reader poll (by a large margin) with 30% of those who participated in the poll choosing the protestors. 27 million people voted, so that’s over 8 million votes for one particular group.
Time used to only name one person each year, but the publication has recently changed to include groups of people on a regular basis.
What’s a bit sad about all of this is that Twitter protests usually end up creating background noise compared to the loud trumpets of praise. The posts keep coming, mostly all one-sided, but each posts tends to last a few minutes before another replaces it and moves all comments down into the feed.
What could change that? Better organization and better algorithms. Twitter comments appear in chronological order, so it is often hard to gauge sentiment.
Although, in this case, it’s not too hard.
