As the political season heats up with the approach of winter, social media continues to be both the target and the darling of politicians and their spin doctors-cum-marketers. But now there’s a new wrinkle that could upset the political applecart. It’s the rise of the amateur political commentator on Twitter. The Pew Research Group recently reported that over ninety-five percent of all political tweets are created by just ten percent of Twitter users. Furthermore, the researchers reported that just a handful, a mere six percent of all Twitter users aged twenty-on and up account for nearly seventy-five percent of all of the political tweets. 

The Pew group also reported that the heavy majority of political tweets during the past six month have been anti-Trump and anti-Republican. One thing the study could not determine was the political affiliation of those doing the most political tweeting — unless the users themselves revealed that information in one of their tweets. 

Since the introduction of new algorithms last March, Twitter has assured its users that most, if not all, fake news and so-called ‘ghost’ accounts have been scrubbed from the platform. Their claim is that only real people are now tweeting about politics, and not bots programmed to scam the American public.