This past Sunday night former President Donald Trump launched his own social media platform on the App Store: Truth Social. Since its launch, the app has been listed number on the free app charts with over half a million downloads in the first forty eight hours of being live. However, due to its popularity, many users were met with error messages when attempting to sign up. Additionally, over 500,000 hopeful users are on a waitlist to join the app.
Since its launch on February 20, search terms “Trump” and “Truth Social” have generated 125.96K mentions and reached 2.77 billion users. Twitter dominates hosting these conversation with 94,254 mentions. Twitter dominates this conversation topic with over 101,839 mentions.
As with most conversations related to politics, the reactions to this launch were mixed:
Jimmy Kimmel on the disastrous launch of Trump’s social media site Truth Social: “Truth Social has been such a disappointment so far, Trump may have to rename it to ‘Don Jr’”.
The idea for this social media platform came following the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riots. Trump took to social media to claim that election fraud had occurred after Joe Biden was announced the winner of the 2020 US Presidential Election. Because these claims were viewed as baseless, platforms such as Facebook and Twitter pushed back on the misinformation and banned Trump from their social media platforms.
This was arguably detrimental to Trump’s communication with his supporters; he primarily used Twitter to communicate with almost 90 million followers before he was removed. In a press statement on October 20, 2021, Trump stated “I created Truth Social and TMGT to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech.” Most likely as a consequence, Truth Social’s platform design is almost completely identical to Twitter.
The app will most likely not be fully operational until sometime in March. It remains to be seen if this platform will face similar obstacles to relevance and success like the previously popular Parler platform.
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics came to an end Sunday following a 16-day long competition in across 109 events. The closing ceremony was one to remember with snowflake-shaped lanterns and fireworks that spelled out “One World, One Family.”
Photo courtesy of NPR
According to NPR, “The closing ceremony, like the opening one, was a simplified affair compared to the 2008 Summer Games, emphasizing children, Chinese tradition and ordinary people.” Chinese President Xi Jinping sat next to International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach in the stands, watching the ceremony unfold.
The closing of the first ever Olympics to take place with Covid-19 restrictions meant a small crowd of invited guests attended the ceremony after the city announced they would not sell tickets to the public. Beijing, the first city to host both the summer and winter Olympic games announced that Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy will be the next destination for the Winter Games.
Recap
In addition to strict Covid-19 restrictions, this year’s Olympics were also marked by a U.S.-led diplomatic boycott over China’s human rights record, tensions between Russia and Ukraine and a high-profile doping saga involving a 15-year-old figure skating phenom.
In early December 2021, the Biden administration revealed they would not be sending any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing Olympic Games given the People’s Republic of China’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses. This would be the first time in a long time where no U.S. government officials attended the Games, but U.S. athletes were still able to compete. The last boycott occurred in 1980, when the United States led a boycott of the Summer Olympic Games in Moscow to protest the late 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Conversation on social media surrounding the boycott peaked on February 4th– the day of the opening ceremony- when over 4,500 mentions on social media were made regarding the United States decision. The conversation was largely led by News outlets sparking over 11.4K mentions, while Twitter ranked as the second source for this conversation at 2.8K mentions.
Photo courtesy of CBS Sports
Ongoing tensions between Russia and Ukraine certainly echoed throughout the games as Russia has a previous history of utilizing the Olympic Games as a guise to their advantage. Russia’s invasion of Crimea occurred in 2014 amid the Winter Olympics in Sochi, and in 2008, Russia invaded Georgia during the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Russia also took advantage of the Tokyo Games in 2020 to execute cyberattacks as part of a broader, worldwide hacking campaign. Cyber attacks against Ukraine occurring last Thursday prior to the close of the Olympics were likely no different. This ongoing conversation has garnered 5.29 millionmentions on social media since February 1st and has reached over 109 billionfeeds. Twitter is the largest leader in the conversation totalling 3.5 million mentions, while News outlets rank second at 631K mentions.
Photo courtesy of NBC
Finally, Kamila Valieva mad headlines following her tearful 4th place finish in women’s single figure skating. The 15-year-old Russian favourite was ruled to participate despite having tested positive for a banned heart medication. Valieva’s test results surfaced following her historic quadruple jump in Olympic competition which helped team Russia secure gold. The United States won the silver. The decision to let her skate again in individual competition sparked controversy in many athletes around the world. More specifically, Valieva was mentioned on social media over 536K times since February 1st. Her story has reached an astronomical 21 billion feeds. This case raised many eyebrows partly due to her age, still being a minor, and Russia’s history of doping in the Olympic Games. Overall sentiment scores revealed the majority of conversations remained neutral (372.9K), while more than 45K mentions were positive and 98K mentions were negative.
The closing ceremony received lots of social media attention on Sunday, reaching over 2 billion feeds across platforms. The Olympics provide an opportunity for global conversation like no other. Our social media data provides a peak into the top trending topics throughout the games and we look forward to analyzing the next Olympics at the Social Media Listening Center.
Buckingham Palace recently announced that Queen Elizabeth II is currently battling COVID-19, the latest in a difficult past few months for the monarch. While she is reported to have only mild cold-like symptoms, she is apparently continuing to execute “light duties”.
Queen Elizabeth II has tested positive for the coronavirus, Buckingham Palace announced Sunday. The British monarch is experiencing “mild cold like symptoms,” the palace said, but is expecting to continue “light duties” at Windsor over the coming week. https://t.co/uY2Lv37GUd
The news broke Sunday morning, and just since midnight GMT on Sunday, there have been 613,640 mentions of the queen’s name across social media. Those mentions skyrocketed throughout Sunday, reaching more than 402K mentions, as people around the world took in the news.
Top themes on social media include the phrases “God save the Queen” as well as “speedy recovery.” As with many COVID-19 related topics, sentiment remains split, with nearly 60% of the mentions being coded as positive. However, as many people tweet support, negatively valanced words and phrases describing COVID itself may skew the machine-learning.
That said, with how polarizing the monarchy and much of British politics in general has been in recent years, certainly sentiment remains all over the board. Some Tweets discuss the implications of a 95-year-old COVID patient continuing to work, despite her age and illness, and what that says to everyday citizens who do not have the resources and support system the queen does. Others are using the moment to discuss and critique other leaders like Prime Minister Boris Johnson and First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon, especially as Johnson ended COVID-19 restrictions in the United Kingdom just today. Perhaps his timing could have been a little better.
Following a tumultuous year that saw the death of Prince Philip, the ongoing legal drama surrounding Prince Andrew’s sexual assault charges, Harry and Meghan stepping away from royal duties, and health woes that prompted the queen to withdraw from multiple events and even spend time in the hospital, it’s no wonder social traffic encompasses many themes and sentiments of discussion from people around the world.
Even Nicki Minaj offered up well wishes, from one queen to another:
God save THE QUEEN.
Sending my love & respect to The Queen & her palace.
Americans are offering up posts aplenty, having mentioned the queen 97.6K times. Also unsurprisingly, the United Kingdom comes in a close second in mention volume, with 84.2K. Other former dominions or current commonwealth realms like Canada (14.6K mentions), India (11.3K mentions), and Australia (7.5K mentions) round out the top-five nations of discussion.
Meanwhile a search for the terms “queen AND covid” returns 257,209 mentions in the same time window. While much of this content also critiques Boris Johnson’s COVID protocol, this more-focused traffic demonstrates the high level of concern many people feel toward the queen, conveyed in a map of the most-used emojis: the praying hands emoji, along with the British flag and crown, dominate the visual landscape.
Earlier this week Catholics who have been baptized by Reverend Andres Arango found out that they may not be confirmed Catholics. This revelation came after uncovering that Reverend Arango in Phoenix, Arizona had been using the incorrect phrase to officiate confirmation, holy orders, and marriages. Instead of saying “I baptize you in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” he used “We baptize you.” In their released statement, the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix explained that the incorrect words voided the ceremonial significance, thereby invalidating the sacraments. The publicization of this error and Arango’s consequential resignation made headlines as other diocese found this mistake occurring in their own congregations.
Since the news broke on February 15th, the search terms “Catholic Church” and “invalid” have generated 3.54K mentions and reached an audience of 61.87M users. The conversations scored a net sentiment score of 3.66% positive mentions and 96.34% negative mentions.
Reactions overall tend to have either a critical or comedic take in referencing past criticisms of the Catholic Church.
Huh, who would have thought that pronouns would have been the things to complealty unravel the catholic church….
They are very touchy about that whole trinity thing. Catholic Church have been redefining pronouns since they said three is singular. Pearly gatekeeping.
As for how the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix is handling this, they have taken an apologetic crisis communication approach. Specifically in Bishop Thomas Olmsted’s statement, he expressed the diocese’s sincerest apologies and vowed that they would do everything that they could in contacting those who were affected and correcting the mistake. Additionally, he made it clear that the Church leadership viewed it as an unintentional mistake on Arango’s part and urged his congregation and fellow Catholics to keep the former Reverend and those affected in prayer. The Diocese of Phoenix website additionally had laid out a clear and easy to use FAQ section regarding the validity of baptisms and how to alert them if someone believes that they have been negatively affected by the mistake.
If you tuned into the Super Bowl last Sunday night you may have been invested in the football or there’s a chance you were like me, curious about the commercials. With the hottest ticket in advertising, airing a commercial during the championship game costs an average of 7 million dollars. It is no surprise that we see industry giants scoop up this prime real estate to sell their products.
Among one of the many advertisements, you may have noticed one that followed a run-down animatronic band. To the tune of the 1985 hit- Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds, the old plush characters discover a new passion for life, music, and friends in the Metaverse. Meta likely spent around $13 million for the 60 second ad’s single run during the Super Bowl. Deemed the most expensive VR-related ad to date, Meta used this platform to promote their Quest 2 headset and of course the Metaverse itself.
Photo courtesy of Meta
Bigger than Football
While Meta has been making progress in the widespread household adoption of VR technologies, they have also been making headlines outside of their multi-million-dollar advertisement.
Meta threated to shut down within the European Union in an official report following and ongoing data dispute. All Meta-owned apps including Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram are at risk of being cut off in Europe due to data transfers between Europe and the U.S. that are deemed unethical in terms of privacy protection.
The European Court of Justice ruled the data transfer process between the EU and the U.S. is a breach of privacy according to their regulation. Lawmakers in Europe are looking to implement new legislation that will dictate how EU citizens’ user data gets transferred across the Atlantic.
While the EU believes that the current data protection standards are not being met due to a reliance on US servers, an unnamed source from Meta spoke with CNBC last week stating: “the simple reality is that Meta, and many other businesses, organizations and services, rely on data transfers between the EU and the U.S. in order to operate global services.”
Meta wrote: “If we are unable to transfer data between and among countries and regions in which we operate, or if we are restricted from sharing data among our products and services, it could affect our ability to provide our services, the manner in which we provide our services or our ability to target ads.”
Meta believes an agreement will be reached sometime this year, however if it is no longer allowed to use current processes or similar alternatives, it will “likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe.”
European lawmaker Axel Voss tweeted in response, “Meta cannot just blackmail the EU into giving up its data protection standards, leaving the EU would be their loss.”
Photo courtesy of Getty Images
What does Sprinklr tell us?
In the past month there have been 26.94K mentions of Meta’s tensions with the EU. These posts have reached 4.41 million feeds with an overall sentiment score of 17.3% positive mentions and 82.7% negative mentions. News outlets dominate this conversation in online spaces, accounting for over 17K of the 26.94K mentions. Blogs, Reddit, and Twitter account for the remainder of mentions within the past month.
It is important to note the significant influx of mentions about Meta and the Metaverse on Super Bowl Sunday, however their tensions with Europe were in fact outshone by their creative, musical advertisement. On Sunday, February 13th there was a total of 450 mentions of the ongoing privacy issues between Meta and the EU, however 4.16 million mentions surrounded the Meta Quest 2 Super Bowl ad.
Although Meta successfully steered the online conversation towards their newest VR product, it is important to analyze other, smaller conversations that are ongoing. There is always more to the story when it comes to the worlds leaders in social media technology.
So much happened during Super Bowl LVI, on February 13, 2022, that each one could have its own article! From the star-studded halftime show to the middling commercials and the game itself, there was plenty for fans to talk about on social media.
The game itself was a close-scoring affair, and it would ultimately come down to the last minute – just like many of the playoff games leading up to it. While the Cincinnati Bengals had managed to go ahead with a score of 20-16, the Los Angeles Rams steadily made their way down the field, managing the clock well and taking advantage of several penalties against Cincinnati to inch closer to the endzone and keep the drive alive. A Rams touchdown with 1:25 remaining pushed the home team ahead and would ultimately be the nail in the coffin for Cincinnati, launching the Rams to their first Super Bowl championship in 22 years.
Not surprisingly, there was a massive amount of online dialogue throughout the game. On February 13 alone, there were more than 2.73 millionmentions of the Super Bowl! Just over 2.07 million of those came from Twitter, with Reddit and news outlets rounding out the top three content sources. Discussion ramped up as the game started, spiking around 8 p.m. ET – right around the halftime show – and again near 10 p.m. ET – as the stressful last few moments of the game concluded and the Rams became champions.
The United States was home to most of the traffic, with more than 851,000 mentions, but our North American neighbors also chimed in, with more than 42,000mentions from Canada and more than 33,000 from Mexico. Brazil also comprised a significant slice of the mentions, on par with Canada with just over 42,000 as well.
Many notable individual players also drove a lot of online traffic. Let’s take a look at the stat breakdown:
Joe Burrow (QB, Cincinnati): 22/33, 263 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT, sacked 7 times. 247.2K mentions – including a top theme our social listening software categorized as “Genuinely Concerned For Joe Burrow’s Life.”
Matthew Stafford (QB, Los Angeles): 26/40, 283 yards, 3 TD, 2 INT, sacked 2 times. 107.8K mentions – spiking only around 10 p.m. ET after most of the game was already over but Stafford’s best plays were yet to come.
Cooper Kupp (WR, Los Angeles): 8 receptions for 92 yards, 2 TD. Named Super Bowl MVP. 146.3K mentions, nearly 80% of which were positive as he turned in a truly phenomenal performance.
Tee Higgins (WR, Cincinnati): 4 receptions for 100 yards, 2 TD. 29.9K mentions. Lots of the discussion focused around a controversial play in which Higgins ran in a touchdown after grabbing Jalen Ramsey’s facemask, with no flag on the play.
Odell Beckham, Jr. (WR, Los Angeles): 2 receptions for 52 yards, 1 TD. OBJ left the game in the second quarter after suffering a knee injury, now reported to be ACL damage. 69.2K mentions. The praying hands emoji was frequently used following his injury.
Ja’Marr Chase (WR, Cincinnati): 5 receptions for 89 yards. 26.1K mentions. Other than his name, “wow” was the most frequently used word in content that mentioned Chase – enough said about his rookie year as a whole!
Aaron Donald (DT, Los Angeles): 4 tackles, 2 sacks. 151.2K mentions. Retirement might be on the table for the defensive superstar, but much of the conversation agrees that if this was his last game, it was a last game for the ages.
But what about the rest of the night’s headlines? After all, many people who aren’t sports fans watch “The Big Game” to see the iconic commercials or halftime entertainment. Never fear; both those subjects sparked extensive discussion as well.
The halftime show was a star-studded event featuring many of the all-time greats of hip-hop and R&B, including Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, 50 Cent, and Anderson .Paak. While halftime shows have become a constant game of one-upmanship, and they can never please every fan, social dialogue indicates that an impressive majority of viewers enjoyed the show – more than 75% of the sentiment was positive. Even those who aren’t hip-hop fans could surely appreciate the staging and entertainment value that went into the mini-concert. More than 922.2K mentions discussed the halftime show!
Lastly, how about those commercials? If you aren’t into cryptocurrency, you might have spent at least half of the commercial breaks perplexed – or even if you are, you may have been perplexed. Many commercials featured surreal, CGI-heavy scenes (you okay, Meta?) and celeb-packed rosters. Some of those guest pairings made sense – Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen, Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansen, Miley Cyrus and Dolly Parton – and some did not, tapping marquee names without much connection to one another other than brand affiliation (Nissan, for one, mixing “Schitt’s Creek” stars Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara with Marvel actors Brie Larson, Danai Gurira, and Dave Bautista).
Blockbusters like Marvel’s upcoming Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Moon Knight, as well as the latest Jurassic Park/World installment and Jordan Peele’s Nope also garnered plenty of views.
How did that translate to social media? Hootsuite kept an eye on “The AdBowl” throughout the night, taking a look at some of the heaviest hitters before the game:
It’s a big day for football fans, but an even bigger day for marketers 🤩
We took a look at the mentions around the advertisers tonight. The @NFL took the lead but brands like @AvosFromMexico have our attention 👀
Picture this: you have a meeting at 9am, and it’s 8:20am. You’ve searched everywhere for your keys, yet you just can’t seem to find them. Wouldn’t it be helpful if you had a device that could automatically locate missing objects like your keys? Apple seems to think so, which is why they created AirTags. AirTags are small tag devices that can be placed on items you want to keep up with. The tag is a tracking device that communicates its location via Bluetooth to the owner of the AirTag’s “Find My” app on their iPhone.
However, what started out as a seemingly helpful product has been making headlines for over the past year since its release in April 2021. And not the good kind.
Apple needs to reconsider the AirTag. I’ve seen so many horror stories about it.
Many people began reporting that they were finding AirTags stuck to their cars and personal items to track them. This is because AirTags currently have a feature that sends a notification saying “AirTag Found Moving With You: The location of this AirTag can be seen by the owner.” to the iPhones of the people that the AirTag is traveling with. As recent as last week, on February 3rd, Naugatuck Police reported that an AirTag had been attached to a woman’s car by her ex boyfriend, who she had a protective order against. In a response to these situations frequently occurring, Apple updated the AirTags on February 9th, 2022.
While this article is being written so close in time to this announcement, we do not have a full scope of numerical data to report on how many conversations this will continue to spark on social media over the next few days. However, since their announcement, the search terms “Apple” and “AirTag” have generated 3.28K mentions and reached an audience of 281.94M users. Twitter remains the central hub of these conversations, with 1,790 of these mentions.
The updates to the AirTag include:
Explicitly telling AirTag owners that the product is not designed to track people and can be considered illegal in parts of the world.
Later this year, people being tracked by AirTags will be able to see specifically where the AirTag is located on their “Find My” app.
Increase the sound volume that it already plays when it’s been around a person for awhile.
Decrease the alert time from the current 8 to 12 hours so that potentially tracked people will be notified sooner.
Public opinion has already been mixed on these products. With the new updates though, this should decrease the time it takes for a person to become aware that they are being stalked and deter AirTag owners from using it for a force of evil.
AirTag is getting more scrutiny than other item trackers, but I also believe that is making it more secure. Initially I believed this was a PR minefield for Apple, but it’s also neccessary part of getting a grip on privacy and security in their ecosystem.
On January 22nd a group of protesters began traveling across Canada to meet and rally in the nation’s capital city, Ottawa. The reason for the protest- vaccine mandates for truck drivers. What has been dubbed the “Freedom Convoy” began as new regulations were implemented for cross-border truck drivers from Canada and the United States to be fully vaccinated to enter their respective countries. If they are not vaccinated, they are being asked to follow strict testing and quarantine protocols.
Despite an estimated 80% vaccination rate among current Canadian truck drivers, the Freedom Convoy has quickly escalated into one of the largest protests in Canadian history. The Canadian Trucker Alliance, an industry leader, said “a great number of these protestors have no connection to the trucking industry and have a separate agenda beyond a disagreement over cross border vaccine requirements.”
Photo courtesy of The BBC
The city of Ottawa declared a state of emergency on February 6th after protesters have used trucks to block traffic and continue to blare horns continuously throughout the day. Ottawa police have launched 60 criminal investigations, issued an estimated 100+ tickets, towed vehicles and made at least 20 arrests since February 4th. National monuments have been vandalized and businesses forced shutdown over security concerns. Some pockets of the crowd have been friendly and protesting lawfully, but police say others have intimidated and harassed locals. In addition, the Convoy has been consistent in other Canadian cities including Toronto, and Windsor, where Ambassador Bridge connects to Detroit, MI.
Photo courtesy of CBC News
Officials say the protests have grown into tackling the entire government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as well as pandemic-related issues. Canada Unity, one of the organizers of the protests, said that they plan to submit a “memorandum of understanding” to the Senate and Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in Canada, to compel them to drop the public health measures or dissolve the government — something that is beyond their constitutional powers. Trudeau wrote on Twitter that Canadians have the right to protest, “But let’s be clear: They don’t have the right to blockade our economy, or our democracy, or our fellow citizens’ daily lives,” he said. “It has to stop.”
Gaining momentum outside of Canada
The Freedom Convoy has attracted support from many U.S. Republicans including former President Donald Trump, who called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “far left lunatic” who has “destroyed Canada with insane Covid mandates” and urged the convoy to come to Washington to protest the United States’ public health measures.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, tweeted over the weekend that their states will investigate GoFundMe after they decided to freeze donations to the convoy’s organizers. The popular fundraising platform announced that all proceeds would be refunded since law enforcement reports of violence and other unlawful activity has surfaced. The fundraiser had reached C$10 million—around $7.9 million in US dollars – with C$1 million already distributed before the fundraiser was halted.
Marco Mendicino, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness of Canada, tweeted saying “It is certainly not the concern of the Texas attorney general as to how we in Canada go about our daily lives in accordance with the rule of law.” He later said in a press conference, “We need to be vigilant about potential foreign interference. … Whatever statements may have been made by some foreign official are neither here nor there.”
Photo courtesy of Must Read Alaska
Bruce Heyman, a former U.S. ambassador under President Barack Obama tweeted, “under no circumstances should any group in the USA fund disruptive activities in Canada. Period. Full stop.”
It is likely that the Convoy’s reach on social media will continue to grow and there will be additional rallies outside of Canada. For example, on February 6th in Alaska more than 100 truck drivers gathered in Anchorage and rallied to show support for the Ottawa protesters according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Social media presence
According to Sprinklr, our social media analytics database, the Freedom Convoy has had an impressive 2.1 Million mentions across social media platforms and has reached 10.74 Billion feeds since its debut on January 22nd. The top hashtags for the protest include #freedomconvoy2022, #truckersforfreedom, #cdnpoli (Canadian Politics), and #Canada.
An ode to the peaking interest within the United States, the US leads mentions of the Freedom Convoy on social media with 66,000+ more mentions than those coming from accounts based in Canada. Sprinklr also revealed that the 1.26 Million mentions that shared additional content were likely to contain either a link, photo, or video.
Which is the most used content type?
Tweets from high profile advocates who oppose vaccine mandates including Elon Musk and Donald Trump have significantly impacted the increase in audience from a variety of different demographics across all channels from Twitter to Tik Tok.
Any fear there may have been of over-saturation with two Olympics within 12 months of each other was quickly put to rest as the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games began on February 4. Despite COVID-19 concerns and international rumblings about China’s appropriateness as host nation, nearly 2,900 athletes from 91 countries/national organizational committees turned out for the chance to earn medals in an international spotlight.
On social media – as one would expect from such a blockbuster global event – there has been excessive discussion, cheering, and news dissemination from countries around the world. From Feb. 1 – Feb. 7, the Olympics have been mentioned more than 2.465million times, with a reach of 61.96 billion – the world’s population multiples times over, based on unique content often reaching the same audience members repeatedly.
Between Feb. 3 and Feb. 4, the night of the opening ceremonies, discussion surged, escalating from 347.9K mentions to 604.6Kmentions over just one day. While the volume has since dropped and plateaued, the daily number of mentions still hover around a steady average of 375K.
Top themes of tend to focus on specific sports – notably, the bigger-ticket events like figure skating and ice hockey – as well as broader discussion surrounding the event itself as well as Beijing and China. The United States is generating the most content by far with more than 619K mentions; Canada and the United Kingdom follow with just over 90K mentions apiece. The host nation, China, lands sixth on the list with 29,197 mentions across social media.
Political pressures are evident in top posts, however; many posts coded with positive sentiment focus on the Opening Ceremony, wins, teams, and the hashtag #togetherforasharedfuture. Meanwhile, negative mentions have their own bunch of unique terms: boycott, genocide, communist, and human rights, to name a few. While international concerns are nothing new in Olympic history, individual post output and vocalization of personal opinions on social media has certainly grown over the last few years.
While Russia is currently leading the way with 7 medals and Canada follows close behind with 6, let’s take a look at a sport-by-sport breakdown to see which events are medaling in the digital sphere. With fewer events than the summer games, it’s much more manageable to keep up with the conversations! [All data comes from a window of Feb. 4 – 12:00 p.m. EST, Feb. 7]
Alpine Skiing: 24,161 mentions. Top subjects are the U.S.A.’s Mikaela Shiffrin (who suffered a disappointing fall in a recent round) and France’s Johan Clarey (who just won the silver medal, becoming the oldest Alpine skiing medalist ever).
Biathlon:46,432 mentions. Bucking the trend of U.S.-centric content, much of the conversation is in French, as France earned silver medals in two biathlon events so far and seem to have taken to the Internet to celebrate.
Bobsleigh:10,465 mentions. The United Kingdom takes the lead in volume of content here, due to a widely circulating meme of several lambs in a trough captioned as the “bobsleigh team from Shropshire.”
Cross-Country Skiing: 14,302 mentions. Norway’s Therese Johaug is a frequently mentioned subject, as she just won gold in the 15km skiathlon event.
Curling:135,866 mentions (30,742 mentions with the Boolean addition of “Olympics”). Ah, curling. The Internet’s favorite sport is back. While nothing can top the glory of the Norwegian men’s team’s pants a few Olympics ago, trends indicate that audiences are tuning in – and getting invested.
EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU'RE DOING! The Norwegian curling team wasn't wearing their fun pants in their recent match!!! 😱 Why?! They were so iconic every Olympics! pic.twitter.com/PrUMDktOfU
— ProfBling ✨professor era✨fan account (@profbling) February 5, 2022
Figure Skating: 89,855 mentions. The U.S.’s Nathan Chen and Japan’s Yuzuru Hanyu are two of the top-billed skaters and conversation has certainly been circulating around these talented athletes as the short program event nears. Unfortunately, the U.S.’s Vincent Zhou made news this morning as he was forced to withdraw due to testing positive for COVID-19.
Freestyle Skiing: 16,237 mentions. Lots of drama has been going down in the freestyle skiing world! Sweden’s 21-year-old skier Walter Wallberg upset Great Britain’s iconic Mikael Kingsbury to win gold in the moguls event, while Chinese-American skier Eileen Gu, competing for China, is the subject of many op-eds and other opinion pieces about national loyalty and cheering conflicts.
Ice Hockey: 255,388 mentions (37,531 mentions with the Boolean addition of “Olympics,” since the NHL’s All-Star Game also occurred over this time period). In today’s not-remotely-shocking news, the U.S. and Canada women’s teams are absolutely dominating, outscoring their opponents by massive margins every game. Scheduled to meet in a clash of the titans at 11:10 p.m. EST on Feb. 7, discussion surrounds this high-pride game, as well as the American Brianna Decker’s injury in the very first game of the tournament plus controversy over the ROC-Canada game on Feb. 6.
Luge: 37,802 mentions. Much of the conversation around luge is in German, thanks to powerhouse lugers from Germany, such as gold medal winner Johannes Ludwig. Felix Loch and Max Langenhan also placed fourth and sixth, respectively, rounding out the top six with a solid three German competitors.
Nordic Combined: 5,958 mentions. For those who follow the Nordic combined event, the games have already have their share of controversy. Top discussions follow the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) response to three-time gold medalist Eric Frenzel and the German delegation’s complaint about how he is being treated while he quarantines for COVID-19 symptoms.
Short Track Speed Skating: 14,377 mentions. While the name describes the sport – speed skating around a short track – many viewers seem to be concerned about the more detailed logistics of said sport, with “rules” being a top theme associated with this sport.
Skeleton: 7,878 mentions (with the Boolean addition of “Olympics” already included). Skeleton, luge, and bobsleigh seem like equally dangerous sides of the same sporting die, and indeed media users seem to agree (with “luge” as a top overlapping term of discussion). Other discussions focus on Nathan Crumpton, an American Samoan skeleton athlete who rolled up to the Opening Ceremony and his role as flagbearer shirtless, in a tribute to the iconic “shirtless Tongan flagbearer” who could not attend this year.
Ski Jumping: 19,566 mentions. The icing on the terrifying-winter-sport cake, ski jumping fans got right to the point with lots of discussion about the gold medal, as well as the debut of the mixed team event. Slovenia won the first-ever mixed team ski jumping gold medal!
Snowboard: 68,969 mentions. It’s hardly surprising that a thrilling sport with some of the most dynamic personalities in the field (paging Shaun White, Chloe Kim, and the McMorris brothers) has drawn so many fans. Also not surprisingly, the U.S. and Canada wipe the board (pun intended) with snowboarding content.
Speed Skating: 33,151 mentions. The Netherlands’ medal count is like a who’s who of speed skating, with all five of their medals so far coming in either speed skating (4) or short track speed skating (1). Two golds, a silver, and a bronze for the full-length speed skaters isn’t too shabby at all.
The 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing continue through February 20!
This past Tuesday, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that India’s central bank is planning to introduce digital rupees as a new form of currency in April 2022. The statement comes as a shock due to the negative approach that India has taken towards cryptocurrencies in the past. In 2018, the central bank barred Indian banks from using cryptocurrencies. This was said to have resulted from reports claiming that there was a substantial amount of “suspicious transactions” occurring with top bitcoin exchanges, such as Zebpay, Unocoin, and Coinsecure.
Since the announcement on February 1, search terms “India” and “Crypto” have generated 120.88K mentions and reached 935.15M million users. Twitter dominates this conversation topic with over 101,839 mentions. The posts are overall expressing positive sentiments, with 62.68% being positive and 37.32% being negative.
Needless to say, this change of heart was unexpected but certainly a win for the FinTech industry. Sitharaman stated that instead of placing more restrictions on crypto, which had been heavily implied in November 2021, the government is instead opting for a 30% income tax on virtual digital assets. While many crypto investors are relieved that the rumored ban is now out of the picture, for now, some are concerned that the tax is too much. Specifically, there is a possibility that this will push some investors to liquify their assets or move their investments to another country all together.
On the brighter side, others are viewing this as a substantial step towards legitimizing cryptocurrencies. The creation of the digital rupee is also expected to boost India’s economy. Prime Minister Modi stated that it will assist in online transactions becoming “more secure and risk-free.” This will positively contribute towards the global payment system and pave the way for other countries to introduce their own digital currency. When initiated in April, this will make India one of the first global major economies to introduce a central bank-backed digital currency.
Taxation of Virtual Digital Assets or #crypto is a step in the right direction. It gives a lot of clarity India's focus on digital innovation and promotion of blockchain is welcome The details need to be studied to comment further But it's great news for crypto investors in India
