Here's BBC Trending's Mike Wendling on recent UKIP candidate Carl Benjamin, as featured in a piece in Scotland's The Herald:
“He’s cultivated a fan base, he’s cultivated quite a passionate fan base, but he’s not alt-right. He’s explicitly said that he doesn’t believe in the alt-right.
“On the other hand he’s obviously very offensive. He claims to be for free speech but it’s more specific than that, it’s not really about free speech it’s about the freedom to offend people.
“If you have a message that gets so many people riled up then surely you can convert that into a political message if you do it the right way. But maybe that is the problem, maybe it’s simply a fact that the actual campaign is not as compelling as your YouTube videos.
“The significance is that they are people with large YouTube followings, who come from fairly provocative, offensive, or extreme right positions and they have not been able to translate that into a political movement.”
[Mr Wendling added he has not conveyed] “any sort of philosophy” [during his campaign]. “All he’s known for is a rape joke.”
“There’s always been a disconnect between developing a large social media presence and turning that into a mainstream electoral success.
“The jury is definitely still out on the actual influence of social media.”
“The jury is definitely still out on the actual influence of social media.”
ReplyDeleteBBC Trending not working out as intended then?
Carl Benjamin has a verifiable following on social media, which doesn't mean that his followers all agree with him, but in terms of getting elected they clearly don't live in the Euroconstituency that he stood in. I doubt if as many as one in ten thousand voters had heard of him before the election. On the other hand the BBC's own, our Gavin, must surely have been known by a (single figure) percentage of his potential voters.
Nice to know The Herald supports violent disruption of peaceful political campaigns.
ReplyDeleteSeems like Wendling is another BBC employee who laughs in the face of Fran Unsworth guidelines - which give a whole new meaning to "more honoured in the breach".
The Herald would cream themselves for Benjamin's viewing figs. He is far more popular than that remoaner SNP shill of a rag - as for the BBC - dirty dirty smear merchants!
ReplyDelete