Sometimes, this is done entirely cynically. The quickest way to get anything to go viral across Labour Twitter and Facebook groups is to claim that the BBC isn’t reporting a particular story or, even better, has worked to deliberately distort it to favour the Conservatives. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images ‘The BBC won’t tell you’ Amazingly, this breaks no rules whatsoever. Even if these don’t work, the party has been known to meddle with the relative heights of the bar charts to get the result they want. That means convincing voters the party has a viable chance in their seat is a major hurdle for the Lib Dems in a way that it isn’t for Labour or the Tories.Īs a result, Liberal Democrats will use almost any data to give the result they want, sometimes using EU election results or even partial local council results, rather than the previous general election, to try to paint the picture they want. Liberal Democrats know that they do much better when voters believe they have a viable chance of winning in a particular seat, a reasonable intuition that has been backed up by numerous specific polls. Any real nerd will have very strong opinions on them and probably a few particular favourites. ![]() One of the easiest ways to spot a true political nerd is to ask them their feelings on Liberal Democrat bar charts. Who knows if it wins any votes, but it’s certainly an effective wind-up. ![]() When this goes really well, it leads to journalists (unable to ignore a good viral story) asking the politician about it, and if the politician really screws up, they then deny the viral claim and send it through the mainstream too. The catchier of the memes, such as a claim that Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson enjoys murdering squirrels with a catapult, eventually catch on with regular internet users who believe the story, are outraged by it and share it. One of the easiest ways to spot a true political nerd is to ask them their feelings on Lib Dem bar charts The trick begins with “extremely online” party supporters creating a “fake news” meme with some ridiculous claim about a politician, then circulating it with a sense of faux outrage among a group of people in on the joke. This tactic is one used by passionate supporters of a party, usually Labour, rather than parties themselves, which (sensibly) stay well away from it. Given that the party’s Twitter account faked the appearance of a neutral fact-checker during a leaders’ debate, it’s unsurprising they don’t get the benefit of the doubt. Though the party can claim the tactic is allowed and the advert shows who is promoting it, this has not won over many of its critics. The Conservatives have been most aggressive with this tactic this year, registering .uk for an attack site promoted against Labour search terms, provoking a large Twitter backlash. Parties can also target these by area and basic demographics, to try to advertise most heavily in marginal constituencies and with likely floating voters. This gets them a slot at the top of Google results that some users may not notice is an advert. This is the simple trick of, say, the Conservative party bidding for adverts when voters type “Labour” or “Labour manifesto” into Google. This simple trick has been used as standard by most major parties for several elections now, but seems to be attracting anger this time around. Here are some of the tactics seen in the field. Online campaigning has been a feature of the last few UK elections, but 2019 is something else, with a bad-tempered and increasingly badly behaved social media ground war.
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