Jon Worth Profile picture
Sep 24, 2020 12 tweets 5 min read Read on X
Thanks @ZNConsulting for running the #EUinfluencer event again this year, and I am happy to finally triumph over @Berlaymonster 💪

But seriously, we need to think a bit more about this idea.

If I am influencing anything in EU affairs, it sure doesn't feel like it.

A thread...
I am lucky. I was an early adopter of Twitter. I started using this tool before loads of people in Brussels had even heard of it.

That's how I have 60k followers.

It's not because I am any good.

It's because I was early.
That - tying into the discussion with @KingKritick & @JusticeLeagueEU - is something I see as a responsibility.

That people gave me the benefit of the doubt to help me get a decent audience means I ought to act towards others the way I'd expect them to act towards me.
That means to try to be as fair to an anonymous account with a few followers that makes a good point as I would be towards someone much higher up the Twitter foodchain than me.

And to try to boost voices traditionally under represented in the Brussels EU bubble.
But - try as I might at a personal level - I nevertheless see a coarsening of the debate on Twitter, and people not listening to others and not giving each other the benefit of the doubt.
Whereas 5 years ago if you made a good point you might have a MEP or Commissioner reply to you, now you can basically forget it.

You can do complicated and detailed analysis, but it feels like you're tweeting that into a black hole.
Putting it another way: the influence I may once have had in this environment - towards those who have offline influence or an audience much larger than mine - has dissipated.
Take #BrexitDiagram - the thing that I am I suppose best known for. The engagement with those diagrams is so minimal so as to mean I'm not sure it's even worthwhile making them any more.
Do MEPs, Commissioners, MPs, journalists engage with them? Pretty much never.

Maybe they might see them once in a while, but I cannot know.
Instead if I push my audience's emotional buttons - making cheap shots at the expense of my opponents, or using humour to highlight the absurdity of the politics we face - the social media stats go off the scale.

But that's not influence. That's delivering an emotional response.
I end up feeling like some sort of a community manager, somehow a sort of curator of my tribe. But that tribe cannot be deployed to make any real change to anything in politics in the EU.

It's a strange feeling.
Views of @liorakern @BrusselsGeek @hughbs @HaroldTor @pweiss would be welcome!

#EUinfluencer

/ends

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More from @jonworth

Dec 11, 2022
This morning I’m one of the first new regional trains Maubeuge 🇫🇷 - Charleroi Central 🇧🇪 #CrossBorderRail
It was a bit of a #fail at the station. I needed a ticket to Erquelinnes, the first station in Belgium. But prior to today trains from Maubeuge didn’t stop there!

Ticket machine ⛔️
Ask at the ticket office. “Le train ne s’arrête pas à Erquelinnes!” I politely told the SNCF employee that yes, it did stop at Erquelinnes. I explained the situation to the SNCB train manager and he laughed, confirmed it did stop there, and I bought the ticket online!
Read 8 tweets
Dec 10, 2022
Signal failure south of Fulda. Looks like I could miss the event in Mons I’m organising 😭
Delays in my favour. Maybe? S-Bahn to FFM Flughafen. Get a late running ICE to Köln Messe/Deutz there. Then try to blag my way onto a Thalys Köln Hbf to Bruxelles? It’s a long shot but it might work…
ICE 612 Frankfurt Flughafen to Köln Messe/Deutz.

This is why accurate live running data in apps matters. Were this not running 10 min late I’d not have caught it… but live data allowed me to plan a connection that’d otherwise not work
Read 12 tweets
Dec 1, 2022
Already on the 2nd train of the day: TGV Montbard - Paris. All being well I’ll be in Denmark tonight… but that feels a long way off just now! #EGPCongress #crossborderrail
Across Paris RER Gare de Lyon to Gare du Nord, walk to Gare de l’Est (faster than changing into a Métro to Est) and it’s onto the TGV to Mannheim. So far so good, but I banked on this bit working 🙂 #EGPCongress #CrossBorderRail
Franco-German train service. Very French prices! And no, it’s too early (and expensive) for #beerontrains 😉
Read 16 tweets
Nov 30, 2022
Tomorrow hundreds of delegates - myself included (from 🇫🇷) - will start their trip to @europeangreens congress in København

Most of us will go by 🚆
Many trips will be disrupted as railways are a mess

But there’s nothing about transport on the programme europeangreens.eu/congress2022/p…
I don’t blame @europeangreens for this, short term. They only have on their programme what member parties want.

But there isn’t the fierce debate or intellectual exchange in the Green movement about transport as there is about other issues.
Given CO2 emissions in transport are still rising (unlike in other sectors) that ought to be a matter for urgent attention from Greens.

And hell, the event is in København, a paradise for 🚲. There’d be opportunities to use that as a hook.
Read 4 tweets
Nov 17, 2022
Talking #9euroTicket at #PassengerFest - slightly frustrating that it’s DB talking about it. Other views are available 😉
“Did behaviour change in the way the government intended?” asks the moderator. Ha. Did the government even *know* what its intention was?
Oh and the DB dude is saying it was too cheap. As he would. Poorer citizens would say otherwise… zeit.de/mobilitaet/202…
Read 5 tweets
Nov 12, 2022
😭 Germany builds a high speed line through Baden-Württemberg - to speed up Stuttgart-München services

It’s been in planning for *years*

But SNCF’s TGVs used for Paris-Stuttgart-München services haven’t been updated to be compatible with the new line!

swr.de/swraktuell/bad…
Jeez. It could take until 2025 until TGVs are approved for the line.

And the whole effing point of Stuttgart21 - of which this line is a part - was to create a Paris-München high speed corridor!

Really, how can everyone mess up *so badly*?
And to those going “yeah but there are few TGVs anyway” true, but so it goes on and on. International services are the lowest priority - even when *they were the stated rationale for building the line*
Read 4 tweets

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