Slightly later than normal due to having been away for the past month, I’ve finally found time to take a look at the StopHs2 ‘campaign’ (and I use that word very loosely) social media numbers for Twitter and Facebook. Unsurprisingly, they’re as empty as Brexit supporters promises. There’s nothing going on about from the usual moaning and trying to make mountains out of molehills whenever Hs2 appears in the news or before a Parliamentary Committee. StopHs2 are purely reactionary nowadays. If it wasn’t for the odd article in the media they’d have sod all to comment on as they’re doing nothing themselves. The days of them organising events or actually making the news (rather than moaning about it) are long gone.
Here’s their latest Facebook scores. I’ve added November and December’s as a comparison.
As the figures show, it’s all pretty moribund. 9229 followers from a population of 66 million where 6.5 million live in constituencies Hs2 will pass through is tiny – as is the number who actually respond to anything. On average, just 0.73% of their followers shared any of their Facebook posts, that’s appalling. After 10 years of campaigning it’s all a bit of a joke, they’re hardly teeming with activists as the comments show – it’s always the same few names who churn out carbon copy responses like this:
Not exactly a group with gravitas or credibility, are they?
Meanwhile, over on Twitter, the numbers are just as bad. I’ve used the same 3 month comparison here.
Yet again, the numbers are flat, despite a frantic burst of Tweets from Rukin (as StopHs2) on 24th January! He frantically tweeted 24 times when Hs2’s former Chairman was giving evidence in Parliament – for all the good it did. The stats show that fatigue soon set in amongst their supporters, the more he tweeted, the less retweets he got! Even retweeting themselves (as they did on a number of occasions) couldn’t bolster the poor numbers!
Nowadays, Rukin’s ‘style’ has descended into abuse and flat out lies, his Twitter tactics have more in common with the high-vis fascists who insult MPs outside Parliament than anyone respectable and whose opinions would carry weight. In the past month an average of 20.09 of their 6484 followers can be bothered (or still exist) to retweet his rubbish. That’s even worse than Facebook at 0.30%! Does that sound like an active and vibrant campaign to you? The #hs2 hashtag used to be a hive of activity for Hs2 antis with a 100 plus, regularly Tweeting to criticise Hs2. Nowadays that’s shrunk to a few dozen regulars and a noticeable bunch of bots who all tweet from the same script that includes support for Brexit and a penchant for Islamophobia.
To be honest, their Twitter ‘campaign’ is a complete waste of time as it descended into childish name-calling and fantasy years ago. All the remaining Tweeters to is show why no-one takes them seriously anymore, they’re more tinfoil hatters than anything else. Here’s a couple of examples.
Oh, and (apparently) UKIP will cancel Hs2 when they get into Government! *sniggers*
So, as you can see. It’s all over bar the moaning now…
