[Thread] 1/ This thread is a comparison of negative Twitter campaigning regarding Trudeau and Scheer. Negative campaigning is the spreading of negative information about a candidate. The purpose is to see which candidate has had more negative campaigns about them. #elxn43
3/ For Scheer the hashtags were "scheer disaster" "scheer hypocrisy"never scheer" "scheer cuts". Note: Some popular hashtags I searched did not return any results. E.g. #trudeaucorruption . This could be because they never were sufficient enough to trend, or some glitch in
4/ trendogate. The results were quite interesting. Firstly, there were more anti-Trudeau hashtags than anti-Scheer hashtags. Trendogate picked up 158 times anti Trudeau hashtags trended, compared to around 102 for anti Scheer hashtags. The most popular anti Trudeau hashtag is 
5/ "Trudeau Must Go", which registered around 140 times. The most popular anti Scheer hashtag was "Scheer Disaster" which trended around 46 times. Trendogate also provides dates where it picked up the trend, which gives some interesting insights. Keep reading....
6/ Assuming we have a relatively indicative set of hashtags, we can see that negative campaigning about Trudeau began much sooner on 16 July 2019. This is when "Trudeau Must Go" first trended. By comparison, "Scheer Disaster" first trended on 14 September #cdnelxn2019 #cdnpoli
7/ We can also see some locational data - i.e. where did Trendogate detect from Twitter these hashtags were trending. Caveat - I am not convinced by the accuracy of Twitter's locational trending. Anyway, we can see that in Edmonton & Ottawa anti Trudeau hashtags... #cdnelxn2019
8/ beat out anti-Scheer hashtags quite considerably. E.g. in Edmonton, anti Trudeau hashtags registered 48 times while anti Scheer hashtags registered just ten times. I am not an expert on Canadian politics but I gather in 2015 Conservatives won most seats in Edmonton, so I guess
9/ that could stack up. However it wouldn't explain Ottawa, as that was won by the Liberals. It's possible Conservatives are targeting Ottawa & Edmonton, but it could be because these are relatively large population centres - although Edmonton not so much as Vancouver or Montreal
10/ so yes, it seems that anti-Trudeau Twitter trends are far more common than anti Scheer trends. This could be because of the fact Trudeau is incumbent, and thus possibly more likely to attract criticism, but given what we've seen it is probably due to various right-wing
11/ influence campaigns. It makes sense that anti-Scheer hashtags began the month he announced his leadership for the conservative party, but also interesting that "Trudeau Must Go" began back in July. It looks like there was a brief uptick in anti Scheer hashtags this month,
12/ but it's also important to note that Twitter's algorithm rewards novelty, and while "Trudeau Must Go" is almost constant and active, in theory Twitter can demote this because it's not 'novel'. Whether they do or not is unclear, as there is little transparency
13/ Anyway, given my recent thread on all the sketchy MAGA accounts attacking Trudeau, and the fact there are far more self-described anti Trudeau accounts on Twitter (see thread >) - it is important to be cautious. #elxn43
