Twitter reactions not representative of public opinion

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/oscars/9892192/Oscars-2013-How-Twitter-reacted-to-host-Seth-MacFarlane.html
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/super-bowl-twitter-reaction--ravens-and-49ers-players-react-to-the-big-game--051714741.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/23/facebook-down-tweets_n_737268.html#s144420

 

Kind of snotty to dance on Twitter's supposed grave. Looking at opinions on Twitter is no different than crowd sourcing the old-fashioned way.

Every social media collective has its own little communities, its own rules, its own realities.

This place, for instance, proves this daily.

 

I think it is more accurate to take a poll of 1,500 people and represent it as a national poll of how over 300 million Americans think. You know, like Pew Research does.

 

People dance on our grave all the time. A little tit for tweet is OK by me.

 

Twitter's fine. I like Twitter.

Twitter is not an accurate gauge of public opinion.

 

Neither is quoting people who go to city council meetings.

 

I hate those stories, too.

 

Your ideal media organization would write three stories a day.

 

Twitter is too a legitimate tool to gauge public opinion.

I'd listen to Twitter these days before I listen to a Pew poll or other "leading" poll.

 

Please welcome Peggy Noonan, everyone.

 

Riiiight, Dickie.

 

How can you say it's a legitimate tool to gauge public opinion?

It is provably and demonstrably not.