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OhMyGov Inc.
Anthony Weiner Twitter Analysis
Prepared for: Members of the Media

Delivered: Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Summary of Findings

This report identifies patterns of behavior in Rep. Anthony Weiner’s

Twitter account, including where, when, and how he tweeted, and to
whom he most frequently tweeted. Overall, a pattern of tweeting during
non-business hours and to young women emerged. The analysis ends
with an account of the public’s reaction on social media to the news
cycle surrounding “weinergate,” from May 27th to June 7th. Public
support waxed and waned along with the news cycle, concluding with a
mix of positive and negative support on June 7th.
 Introduction

While members of the media are covering the story of Congressman Weiner’s
online affairs, OhMyGov Inc. staff examined some of the patterns in Anthony
Weiner’s Twitter usage and the public’s reactions to the story as it progressed over
a ten day period, from the evening of May 27th, 2011 when Rep. Weiner first
tweeted out a picture of his crotch, to June 6th, when he confessed to sending
the picture and others to various women he met online, and in the media wake
that followed on June 7th.

Platforms Used
Figure 1
While House Ethics Committee prepares its
investigation into Anthony Weiner’s behavior
to determine whether he violated any 1%
1%
1%

House ethics rules in using government

computers or devices or tweeted graphic 33%

photos during working hours, OhMyGov

examined patterns in platforms 64%
Congressman Weiner used over the past
year. Use of the photo sharing site, Yfrog,
was particularly interesting, as that was the
Web
means by which the Congressman sent the
Twitter for BB
illicit photos of himself. Twitter Button
Tweetdeck
Figure 1 to the right shows the percentage of time Yfrog
each platform was used to send the Congressman’s
tweets from November 2010 through March 2011. Tweets were mostly sent from
the Twitter website (64%) and from the Congressman’s Blackberry (33%). One
percent of tweets were sent via Yfrog, Tweedeck, and Twitter buttons,
respectively.

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 April 2011 - Present

Platform use patterns changed mildly from April 1, 2011 onward, where
Tweetdeck was used to send 46% of tweets. Rep. Weiner used his Blackberry to
send tweets 24% of the time and sent 29% of tweets directly through Twitter.
Very few times did the Congressman use Yfrog, or if he did, those messages were
not available for public consumption.
Figure 2

Web
Twitter for BB
Twitter Button
Tweetdeck
29%

46%

24%
1%

Use Patterns

Part of the danger of using social media, as Rep. Weiner will attest, is that a
thoughtless comment can go viral and be spread around the world within a matter
of minutes. As such, patterns of behavior in using social media can be an
indicator of what the user’s intentions are, or in this case, were. During daytime
hours, one would expect more professionally-focused information to be
communicated via Twitter, irrespective of whether you are a Congressman or
consultant. But at night, as people let their guards down, tweets will typically
become more casual.

In analyzing @repweiner’s twitter usage, some interesting patterns emerged. While

the Congressman spent the majority of his tweeting time during the weekdays, he
continued to tweet a fair amount on the weekends, potentially exposing himself to
the type of casual behavior that led to his June 6th admission of guilt.

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 Figure 3. Percent of Tweets Sent by Day of the Week

Mon

Tues

Wed

Thur

Fri

Sat

Sun

0 12.5 25.0 37.5 50.0

@repweiner

Digging deeper, we see in Figure 4 below that the Congressman also had a habit
of sending late night tweets from his Twitter account. Although the majority of
tweets were sent out during the day, 18% of tweets were sent after 7pm at night,
including the infamous tweet to @gennettenicole containing a picture of Rep.
Weiner’s crotch, which went out at 23:31 (11:31pm).

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Figure 4. Percent of Tweets Sent by Time of Day (Military) Nov 2010 - March 2011
30.0

22.5

15.0

7.5

0
0600 0800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200

@repweiner

The pattern varies slightly over the past few months (Figure 5), although the
Congressman still consistently tweeted messages late into the evening.

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Figure 5. Percent of Tweets Sent by Time of Day (Military) April - June 2011
10.0

7.5

5.0

2.5

0
0600 0800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200

@repweiner

Even more interesting, perhaps, is who Rep. Weiner was sending tweets to most
often. Because of the large volume of tweets sent out, we are only able to
examine those receiving tweets from the Congressman most frequently. To control
for tweets sent to the media and other politicians to self-promote his issues, we
eliminated media outlets, politicians and their staff from our analysis. The results
are displayed below.

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 Figure 6. Percent of Tweets Sent to Frequent Contacts

@cheeriogrrrl
@ConsentHousecat
@creepus
@alexmce
@rjgnyc
@HouseSox
@sassbutt
@ettingerdesign
@jazzcattrio
@38_28_38
@IamGoldie22
@lizzhay
@PolitiBitch
@LT425
@charyl
@EmVandermeulen
@kknapp1
@blackbirdfly411
0 1.25 2.50 3.75 5.00

@repweiner

@KKnapp1

@alexmce
@sassbutt
@charyl

@38_28_38

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 Public Reaction to Weinergate

Public reaction to Anthony Weiner’s denials, accusations, and admittance has

varied wildly over the course of this two-week saga. In lieu of public polling, which
is often biased by demographics, timing, and the likelihood a person will agree to
be polled while resting comfortably at home, OhMyGov tracks real-time reactions
to events on social media. These reactions can take the form of liking or unliking a
Representative’s facebook page, posting comments to social media, or choosing
to follow/unfollow the Congressman’s twitter account. Very often, these reactions
mirror those seen in approval ratings and provide a useful for tool for analyzing
how the public is reacting to a situation in real-time on a much more massive
scale than polling can provide.
“Social media
provides a way Figure 7 below shows how the public reacted to various news stories about the
graphic photos sent out on Twitter by Rep. Weiner.
to analyze the
public’s
reaction to
events in real-
time.”

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 The graph shows trends in the Congressman’s support on Facebook and Twitter.
Each plot represents the net number of new Facebook fans and Twitter followers
added to Rep. Weiner’s social media accounts daily. The pattern shows how the
public reacted to various news threads. As the public became convinced of his
innocence and the likelihood that his account was indeed hacked, users of social
media flocked to support Rep. Weiner on social media properties. But as the
interviews continued and journalists pushed for answers, there was a steep drop
in support, showing that the public was also becoming skeptical that Rep. Weiner
was telling the truth.

When the news finally broke that Weiner admitted sending pictures over the Web,
there was a small pop in public support by those moved by his apologetic
speech, and those who were convinced he was still trustworthy enough to
perform his duties in office.

Public Sentiment

In the aftermath of Weiner’s confession, nearly 2,000 comments circulated daily

on Twitter about the Congressman. Surprisingly, the breakdown of positive vs
negative comments was nearly equal. The vast majority of comments on Twitter
were simply circulating the news about the events, and were thus neutral in tone.
Over 50% of all tweets made some mention of his resignation, with many
questioning whether that will be the next step to this chain of events.

Among those calling for his resignation on social media were members of
Congress, including Rep. Eric Cantor.

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 About OhMyGov Inc.

OhMyGov Inc. is a non-partisan, Virginia-based media and technology firm

dedicated to improving public sector communications through news and digital
productivity tools.

This analysis was made possible by the National Science Foundation, which
provides grant funding to OhMyGov Inc. to create digital tools to evaluate and
enhance communications within the government and political community.

About the Author

Andrew B. Einhorn is the CEO and Cofounder of

OhMyGov Inc. and a public health and communications
consultant with a decade of industry experience.

Mr. Einhorn heads research and development efforts of a

National Science Foundation-funded media monitoring
platform created exclusively for government. As an
adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University, Mr.
Einhorn’s research interests included the application of
new and social media to health communications. As a
consultant and former Senior Associate at ICF International, Mr. Einhorn supplied
technical assistance and social media strategy and support to a wide variety of
public and private sector clients.

Mr. Einhorn is a published author and columnist for the Huffington Post, and has
spoken about his varying experiences on international cable news networks and
syndicated radio shows. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Emory
University and a Masters of Engineering Management from The George
Washington University

Available for media interviews.

For more information, visit http://consulting.ohmygov.com or the

award-winning political blog at www.ohmygov.com.

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