Richard Dawkins' Twitter Followers

I remember the first time I met Muslim apologist Adnan Rashid. He, Hamza Tzortzis and other members of the Islamic Education and Research Academy were running a stall on my route home and he attempted to convince me evolution could not be true because of 'irreducible complexity'. As he waxed lyrical on the complexities of bacterial flagellum (a whiplike appendage that enables movement in bacteria) I realised he was liberally borrowing from the work of Christian creationist Michael Behe.

Rather than point out the incongruity of relying on such a source I said it seemed odd to offer a mechanism that allows the spread of devastating diseases like Legionnaire's as evidence for a loving God. He paused, folded his arms, fixed me with a gaze that conveyed seriousness and then asked "what would happen if all the cells in your body lost their flagellums?".

Some with an interest in biology may have chuckled at the above. Bacterial flagella by definition are attached only to bacteria, facilitate movement, and as a general rule the cells in my body have no particular need to independently decide to relocate. It demonstrated the lightest skimming of Christian creationist material and a near complete misunderstanding of Behe's rather poor argument. (Those interested can see it debunked in full here. You can watch footage of Rashid losing an argument with PZ Myers here.)

The second time I shared a room with Rashid was at the World Atheist Convention in Dublin, 2011, when he asked a ponderously long and dreary question of Dawkins. I shared my anecdote with Dawkins who chuckled briefly. I thought it might be interesting to look at his Twitter account.

Word Cloud
I took a sample of five thousand of Dawkins' followers and examined their Twitter biographies, running them through a program that counts the frequency of words folk use to describe themselves and assembling an image where most frequently used words are shown in greater sizes. Dawkins' followers are likely to describe themselves using words like student, science, university, teacher and atheist. (On a general note, an improbably high number of tweeps describe themselves as writers. I do hope they have day jobs.)

Words noted by their absence include homeopath, Hare Krishna, acupuncture and miracle. It seems the head of the foundation for reason and science has done an admirable job of attracting those interested in both fields.

Gender
These results are indicative only. Again working off the same sample of five thousand Twitter accounts, I ran the first names through a script I wrote to estimate gender. It isn't overly complex - I have a list of known masculine names and a list of known feminine names. Based on the results it seems that 75% of Dawkins' followers have masculine names.

Why You Should Listen To EverydaySexism (TW)

(Trigger warning for discussion of trivialising of violence against women including one image.)

Regular readers of this blog are perhaps unduly familiar with word clouds, but as EverydaySexism and the #FBRape campaign are fresh topics to me I feel it best to recap for any potentially new readers. I've been following @EverydaySexism on Twitter for some time now and when I'm interested in finding out more about a Twitter account I like to look at the people who follow it. Working in IT lets me look a little closer than most and one thing I like to do is pull the Twitter biographies of all an account's followers and put them in a word cloud.

That's the image above. Words followers of @EverydaySexism use to describe themselves most frequently are the larger, words used infrequently are either small or absent. Click the image to see a bigger copy. It's fair to say that as well as attracting students and feminists the account has a significant number of writers and journalists invested in their efforts. Simon Pegg is a fan, as is Amanda Palmer. Caitlin Moran also follows. From the BBC alone you may recognise Rick Edwards, Jeremy Vine, Samira Ahmed, Mary Ann Sieghart, Sue Llewellyn, Jane Hill and Rhianna Dhillon as followers, and fans of the Guardian will recognise Laurie Penny, Spencer Ackerman, Emily Bell, Vicky Beeching, Lyn Gardner, Tim Dowling, Chris Roper, Sana Saleem, GrrlScientist, Claire Phipps and  Jane Martinson when they examine the list. I shan't bore you by listing every media outlet: suffice it to say the trend continues.

We should also not be too quick to dismiss the non journalist followers of EverydaySexism. Each of their 49,967 (and counting) followers averages 1,030 of their own followers, giving them an enviable social media reach. They seem almost uniquely poised to rapidly deliver their message to hundreds of thousands.

What do they want?

On the Marriage of Iona and Twitter

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In the past David Quinn has referred to me as hilarious and on the fourth of February he once more favoured me with endorsement by seeking to base a blog post entirely on data gleaned from Twitter. Those of you new to this blog will discover, as you delight in my past episodes, that this is something of a forté of mine.

Quinn's tentative steps towards imitating my methods are quite endearing. They consist mainly of copying and pasting tweets. He is but one man. Assistance was required, and who better to stand up to this momentous data gathering task than @IrelandStandUp? Regular readers will recall that they have some experience in the intricacies of Twitter automation, almost an eighth of their followers being paid for fakes. Their qualifications are further bolstered by direct experience with abusive tweets - they enjoyed tweeting faked pictures of abortions and strange references to demons, battles and snares of the devil during pro choice gatherings. (They've had the good sense to delete many of these tweets.)

Quinn's blog post was timed as a response to the Late Late show's discussion on marriage equality. Lacking any stronger point or argument of substance he opted to take issue with language used by viewers via Twitter. His upstanding companion and he compiled utterances deemed offensive and crafted from them a "river of bile", a cliché which will hopefully not impinge on his writing career.

Alive! Gay Pro Life And The Minority Report

It's been some time since we discussed the suspicious @ProLifeAtheists. Unusually for an atheist group, the most common adjective their followers used to describe themselves was 'Catholic', with only two profiles containing the word 'atheist'. Cardinal Dolan and David Quinn featured high on the list of accounts the group felt worthy of following. In short it seemed rather a poor choice for those who posit significant numbers of atheists who oppose abortion. You're welcome to read the post for background.

This post has been rather popular. In fact it's my most popular post of all time, and I was touched by the genuine interest and excitement around the investigation. A recent spike in visits to the post (over 2,000 in one day last week, my thanks to @glinner) caused me to wonder if the masterminds between this cunning deception might have targeted other groups unpopular with American Republicans to create the impression of diverse support.

So I checked.

David Quinn, Politeness and the One-Sided Conversation

David Quinn has written recently on the need to move away from insults in online discourse. It's one of those likely rare topics on which we agree - I find insults lazy, tawdry and generally counterproductive. If your strongest argument is your belief that your opponent is a 'toerag' you have little in the ways of convincing material and your efforts will most likely weaken the cause you support.

He's published a Twitter 'code of conduct' which I read with interest:

"Twitter Code of Conduct needed. 1; no abusive language. 2; address arguments 3; assume the good faith of the other person"

I'm not in a position to promulgate how Twitter is best used, but I was heartened a little to see that these three rules match neatly how I tend to interact online. I slip from time to time; I'm human after all, but I find my most popular posts and most interesting conversations flow from a beginning of engaging with someone of different views using evidence, reason and polite language.

I've written about David Quinn's work with vaccine denial groups before, and the fact that his message is unpopular with women. I've also wondered aloud why the Iona Institute benefits from charitable tax status but I've neither insulted him personally nor used foul language. It came as some surprise to me to find out I was blocked:

Live Action, Youth Defence, and the Return to the Magdalene Laundries

"... back in the olden days of yore, when there was a standard – and when if you got caught having sex before marriage, you would get your butt beat and get sent off to Ye Olde Forbidding Nunnery & School For Wayward Girls – there were a lot fewer teenagers having sex." -Kristen Walker Hatten, liveactionnews.org

I greeted news that Youth Defence is now open about their US-based financing with mixed delight. True, the myth that they are the voice of the silent Irish majority can only be damaged by this approach. But I worry that their true colours may show more clearly when they drop the pretense of being strangers to the worst excesses of anti abortion activism in the USA.

Take the opening quote. It hankers back to a simpler time, where Magdalene laundries prevented abortions by incarcerating those women who dared be raped, judged lascivious by village elders, or - horror of horrors - choose their sex partners without church approval.

ProLifeAtheists - a brief and uninteresting followup

I was asked for some more information on @ProLifeAtheists. Happy to oblige.

@ProLifeAtheists and the Damascene Conversion

"By sticking steadfastly to religious arguments, the prochoice advocates who organised this march have shown they are out of touch with the modern debate – a debate which includes people of all faiths and no faith. Just look at @secularprolife, @prolifeatheists and many others for examples." - Cora Sherlock, Deputy Chair of ProLifeCampaign.ie, via thejournal.ie 

"The Church is entitled to contribute just like any other group in society but the fact remains that abortion concerns human rights, not religion. The Journal readers can see this from groups like @secularprolife, @ProLifeAtheists, PLAGAL and of course the writings of secularists Nat Hentoff and the late Christopher Hitchens." - Cora Sherlock, Deputy Chair of ProLifeCampaign.ie, via thejournal.ie

Atheism is the absence of belief in gods, nothing more, nothing less. Being both an atheist and opposed to legal access to abortion is not an incoherent position, though it would be inconsistent for an atheist to advance a religious argument against abortion.

Still, I was a mite curious about this @ProLifeAtheists group. Who were they? Could they be what I was looking for - a majority Irish group?

Migration Patterns - Why Are @ProLifeCampaign's Followers Mainly American?

Cora Sherlock, deputy chair of the Pro Life Campaign, was kind enough to comment on a recent post where I discussed the organisation's Twitter stats. I encourage you to read both, but for those who can't resist skimming I'll summarise by saying that only ten per cent of this Irish organisation's followers are Irish, and 70% are based in the United States. I'll quote sections of Cora's response for context below.

Cora didn't specify if she was commenting in an official capacity or not. To my mind it is most charitable to assume her words were in a personal capacity and that is the interpretation I will take unless corrected. I should also add that at present I have no reason to believe that Cora runs the @ProLifeCampaign Twitter account - as such any criticism of the account should not be read as directed at Cora. Indeed I'm grateful to her for interacting; it is not a step taken by any other anti-abortion group I've covered.

I've taken the liberty of assigning headers to what I feel are Cora's main points.

Pro Life Campaign - an end to carrots?

I approach this post with a certain amount of dread. Any time I look at the Twitter statistics of groups opposed to abortion in Ireland I invariably find myself beating a fresh path to the oft visited conclusion: they're mainly American. It grows harder and harder to provide entertainment to those willing to accompany me on this journey.

Finding the poverty of Irish numbers supporting Youth Defence in my initial post of this sort was quite amusing. But as I worked my way through the Life Institute, Ireland Stand Up, David Quinn and Ronan Mullen, seeing each one dominated by either Americans, men, or American men, using my unique method of pulling Twitter stats began to become more of a chore.

So, this will be my last check of Twitter geography of anti abortion groups in Ireland. My reasoning is simple - I'm out of material. The only two left are the Life Institute (stats given to the excellent Red Lemonader, looking forward to reading her take) and the Pro Life Campaign, which ran last night.

Craig's List And The People Of The Law

Sometimes it's nice to start from a point of idle curiosity. In a previous installment I prepared a word cloud of the Twitter biographies of those who follow Stephen Law and William Lane Craig. I drew no conclusions from it; there really wasn't enough hard data.

Stephen Law was kind enough to take an interest and we had a brief Facebook chat. I showed him another post of mine on the Discovery Institute. For that one, I'd pulled a list of everyone who follows the Discovery Institute. They're an anti-evolution group with delusions of science, saying their belief in an Intelligent Designer is not motivated by prior theological conclusions. Taking this list of their followers I then found out what each Intelligent Design fan followed. I put the results into a matrix and found that the majority of Discovery Institute fans have a pronounced primary interest in Christian apologetics and no interest in science.

Much as I enjoyed writing that post I find it hard to approach Craig's followers in a similar manner. For one, it would be ludicrous of me to point out that their primary interest is in Christian apologetics and present it as some sort of unexpected finding. Secondly, having met a few fans of Craig I find they tend to be doing their best to work out this mystery called life and are in the main pleasant folk, willing to converse with those of different viewpoints and generally open-minded. That I do not share their conclusions does not mean I do not hold them in some respect.

Let's look at the top twenty for each. First we'll look at those accounts that are most popular with William Lane Craig followers:

David Quinn - Voice of Irish Women?

Increasingly, when investigating a new Twitter account, I find it useful to start with a word cloud formed from the biographies of its followers. Take David Quinn's for instance. Those of you without laser enhanced vision may prefer to click the image for a larger view.

There is much I am sure he would welcome - Irish Catholic journalist are hardly words from which he would seek distance. Political, views, current affairs, Dublin and media all strike me as fair representations of his fans. I don't deny him his supporters.

But today I look with specific focus. David Quinn has been vocal on women's rights of late. Take his Independent column. Take his numerous tweets. I'm going to take a risk and assume he hasn't declined any media opportunities on the subject. It's clear that it is dear to him.

Stephen Law Vs William Lane Craig

I quite enjoy Stephen Law. Reading his books helped rid me of an irrational prejudice against philosophy while teaching me something new and in sections giving me a good laugh - do check out the free chapter of Believing Bullshit. I've mentioned William Lane Craig a couple of times on this blog.

They debated some time ago. It was rather good, and at ten to midnight I can't give it a worthy summary but I encourage you to track it down on YouTube if you missed it. About an hour ago the mood struck me to pull a list of each of their followers, pull each person's Twitter biographies, and do a word cloud of the results. No commentary, it's past my bedtime. I'll leave you to guess which is which. Click for big, feel free to reuse the images elsewhere if you like.

Westboro Baptist Church

On Twitter I asked if anyone would like an account analyzed. I offered to do a wordcloud of the Twitter biographies of followers of nominated accounts.

SomeGreyBloke was first off the mark. If you haven't done so already, do check out his videos. He suggested I check out the Westboro Baptist Church, famed for their "God Hates Fags" placards, their picketing of soldier's funerals,  and their poor personal hygiene.

He was likely unaware that the majority of their followers are not fans. A delightful amalgam of gay, atheist and sane Christian tweeps, the wordcloud of such diverging properties was not one likely to convey all views.

Instead I pulled all messages to @GodHatesFagsWBC and fed that into the mix.

American Woman - gender analysis of Romney / Obama Twitter fans

Estimating gender, be it online or in real life, can be a hazardous matter with significant impact should one err.  Just ask my female friends Nick and Joe, or my male friends Michelle and Evelyn. Still, we can have fun trying. I humoured myself by working out that the majority of women behind Women 4 Shariah were, in fact, men earlier this week and thought I'd take the opportunity to have a glance at the US elections.

For this I selected Women for Romney Ryan (650 followers) and Women for Obama 2012 (2,228 followers).

I'd like to start by admiring Women for Romney Ryan's pluck. When they heard of my intentions they responded with:

@geoffsshortsSure go ahead.....;-)
— Women 4 Romney/Ryan (@WomenforRR) October 26, 2012

and seem like a good-natured bunch.

On to the figures. I can only guess gender for folk who provide a first name. SuperWoman 2.0 seems to be voting Obama, for example, but it's not a first name my script recognises so it will show up as unknown. Similarly, guessing the gender of the Romney Ryan fan "Saving California" is beyond the capabilities of my script. To save you some effort with calculators I'll be showing stats once with the unknown tally included, and once without.

Women for Romney Ryan

 

Women for Obama 2012

 

So in summary @Women_For_Obama has 3.4 times the number of followers, and less than half the percentage of male followers of @WomenForRR.

 

woMen4Shariah

My laptop's been running stats on Anjem Choudary since Sunday evening. He has many followers, mostly EDL members, and it's taking some time to run the reports in which I'm interested. One less popular group I spotted in the preliminary results was Women4Shariah. The name caught my eye - Anjem founded Islam4UK and I wondered if there was any connection.

While looking through the ladies who seek the enforcement of Shariah worldwide I noticed something odd. You can see some of the profile pictures above. You'll note that beards abound. The style of dress is, well, masculine. I didn't wish to rush to judge, but I started to suspect that some of these women for Shariah could be men.

So I checked.

I pulled a list of all followers, determined first names, then ran them through a script I wrote to estimate gender. Some accounts I couldn't tell. "Shariah Of Muhammad", "MuslimPrisoners" and "Sharia 4 Indonesia", for instance, are not accounts where the gender is easily discernible. Accounts of these sort I listed as unknown. The results are as follows:

With only 29% female I venture to suggest that they're missing their target market.