On Thursday, Nov. 4, the Biden Administration officially rolled out two different vaccine rules that cover 100 million private sector workers. The first rule, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), states that companies with 100 or more employees must ensure that their employees are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4. If employees do not get vaccinated by this deadline, they will be required to test negative for COVID-19 at least once a week.

Under the OSHA rule, employers must pay workers for the time off taken to receive the vaccine as well as sick leave for employees who experience side effects. To encourage employees to choose vaccinations over weekly testing, the rule also states that employers are not required to pay for weekly testing. However, agreements with unions may require employers to pay. Unvaccinated employees are also required to wear face coverings at work.

Companies that fail to comply with the OSHA rule may be subject to serious fines. Some major companies have already mandated vaccines, including 3M, IBM, Procter & Gamble, and others. However, other companies have been more hestitant to issue mandates and have been waiting for government clarification on a number of questions.

We know what the experts are saying, but what has the conversation been like on social media? At the Social Media Listening Center, we used a keyword search for “OSHA” and “Vaccinated,” “OSHA” and “Biden Administration,” and “OSHA.” The term “Biden Administration” has been widely used and is not specific enough to be included in the search. While this search may not be fully extensive, it provides a glimpse into the online conversation.

On Nov. 4 when the news was announced, the search found 250,000+ mentions discussing this topic. By Nov. 6 at 11:59 pm, the search found 329,646 mentions across all platforms. The overall sentiment of the search was 8% positive and 92% negative. To get a better look at the conversation and the sentiment surrounding this topic, we paid close attention to the word cloud capturing the most common words and phrases associated with this search:

To gain even further understanding of the sentiment surrounding the news, we looked at the most commonly used hashtags related to the search. We found that #donotcomply, #osha, #nosha, and #texas were at the top. The hashtag #donotcomply is widely being used in opposition to mask and vaccine mandates. When searching the keyword “OSHA,” we found that some of the top themes of discussion were “Vaccine Mandate,” “Employees,” “Rule,” and “Companies.”

Who exactly is engaging in this conversation? It appears that the majority of mentions surrounding this topic are from male Twitter users in the 18-35 age demographic in the United States. The top influencers on Twitter are primarily news outlets, including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and ABC News. Other influencers include journalists and political commentators such as Shannon Bream, Charlie Kirk, and Ben Shapiro.

BREAKING: 5th Circuit temporarily blocks OSHA vaccine mandate.

“Because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate …” pic.twitter.com/rdhYyiFKml

— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) November 6, 2021

Biden’s vaccine mandate is crumbling. Appeals courts in both Texas and Louisiana have temporarily blocked the rule.

They knew it was unconstitutional and they did it anyway. How far will they go to force medical tyranny on all of us?

Keep up the fight. Do Not Comply.

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 6, 2021

The keyword search also revealed that Reddit users are engaging in the subreddits r/Conspiracy and r/Conservative. One of the most popular posts in r/Conservative linked to the official rule by the OSHA on www.federalregister.gov and received 1.2K+ upvotes and 460 comments. The comments contained statements criticizing the rule and the Biden Administration. “Pointing a gun at people’s head provides motivation to do just about anything. Doesn’t make it right,” commented one user.

The volume trend of the conversation has steadily declined since the news was announced. However, this conversation is certainly not over. The vaccine mandate for larger businesses was recently halted by federal appeals court and at least 27 states have filed lawsuits challenging the rule. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with the litigation surrounding the mandate in the upcoming weeks. In the meantime, we’ll continue monitoring this topic and others from the Social Media Listening Center.

Author: Kendall Phillips

On Wednesday, Sept. 15, four prominent American gymnasts testified to the US Senate about the abuse they endured from former USA Gymnastics doctor and convicted sex offender Larry Nassar. McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles, Aly Raisman, and Maggie Nichols recapped how federal law enforcement and gymnastics officials let them down and allowed for the abuse to continue.

This Senate hearing comes years after Nassar was convicted for his crimes. On Dec. 7, 2017, he was sentenced to 60 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges. He was later charged with 10 counts of sexual assault of minors, leading to a sentence of de factor life imprisonment without parole. In their Sept. 16 testimony, Maroney, Biles, Raisman, and Nichols profoundly condemned the FBI’s initial mishandling of the investigation.

“They chose to lie about what I said and protect a serial child molester rather than protect not only me but countless others,” said Maroney to the Judiciary Committee.

What has the conversation been like on social media? At the Social Media Listening Center, we used a search for keywords “Senate” and “Gymnastics,” “Senate” and “Larry Nassar,” and “Senate” and “Gymnasts.” The terms “Senate” and “Senate Hearing” have been widely used and are not specific enough to be included in this search. While this search may not be fully extensive, it provides a glimpse into the online conversation.

On Sept. 15 when the news was announced, the search found more than 35,600+ tweets discussing this topic. By Sept. 19 at 11:59 pm, the search found 68,382 mentions across all platforms. The overall sentiment of the search was 96.4% negative and 3.6% positive. It is difficult to gauge audience sentiment from sentiment analysis alone when discussing serious issues such as sexual assault. To get a better look at the conversation and the sentiment surrounding this topic, we paid close attention to the word cloud capturing the most common words and phrases associated with this search:

To gain even further understanding of the sentiment surrounding this news, we looked at the most commonly used hashtags related to this search. We found that #firewray, #simonebiles, #metoo, and #criminal are at the top. The hashtag #firewray is in reference to FBI director Christopher Wray, who has faced intense scrutiny for how poorly his agency handled the abuse allegations. When searching the keywords “Senate” and “Larry Nassar,” we found that some of the top themes of discussion the day the news was announced were “Senate Judiciary Committee,” “FBI,” “Abuse of Power,” and “Sex Abuse.”

Who is engaging in this conversation? Unsurprisingly, the majority of mentions surrounding this topic are from female Twitter users in the 18-35 age demographic located in the United States. The top influencers on Twitter are primarily news outlets, including The New York Times, Reuters, NBC News, and People. Senator Mazie Hirono and American politician Rudy Giuliani have been active voices in the conversation as well.

Today, @Simone_Biles, @McKaylaMaroney, @MagsGotSwag12, and @Aly_Raisman again courageously shone a light on the culture of complicity, exploitation, and abuse of power they experienced. They are right to demand better from the FBI, USA Gymnastics, and the Senate. pic.twitter.com/2L5vDSHVTL

— Senator Mazie Hirono (@maziehirono) September 15, 2021

The gymnasts whose abuse was covered up by the FBI indicates that the FBI systemic violation of the rights of all those involved with defending President Donald J. Trump was not isolated.

Didn’t this happen under James “Cardinal” Comey.

— Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) September 15, 2021

The keyword search also revealed that Reddit users are engaging in r/Gymnastics, r/NoFilterNews, and r/TodayILearned. Several posts in r/Gymnastics were made in support of the gymnasts and their bravery, including one post featuring Maroney and Biles leaving Capitol Hill holding hands. The comments contained statements of support, including “Just two vaulting queens throwing down an evil empire” and “I hope this is a photo that is shown in history class.”

The volume trend of this conversation has steadily declined since the news was announced. However, this conversation is not over just yet. Last month, USA Gymnastics and hundreds of the victims filed a joint $425 million settlement, so it will be interesting to see what happens with this litigation. In the meantime, we’ll continue to monitor this topic and others from the Social Media Listening Center.

Author: Kendall Phillips

After a unanimous Virginia Supreme Court ruling, a Robert E. Lee statue erected in 1890 was removed from Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia. This was the final Confederate statue to be removed from Monument Avenue, marking a huge victory for civil rights activists.

Following George Floyd’s murder last summer, Democratic Governor Ralph Northam ordered for the statue to be removed. However, the removal of this historic monument required extensive litigation and Supreme Court approval. Despite Virginia having a complicated history with Confederate monuments, citizens seem to be supportive of the decision.

“It’s representative of the fact that we’re sort of peeling back the layers of injustice that Black people and people of color have experienced when governed by white supremacist policies for so long,” said community activist Ana Edwards to the Associated Press.

What has the conversation been like on social media? At the Social Media Listening Center, we used a search for keywords “Robert E Lee” and “Virginia” and “Robert E Lee” and “Statue.” The term “Robert E Lee” has been widely used and is not specific enough to be included in the search. While this search may not be fully extensive, it provides a glimpse into the online conversation.

On Sept. 8 when the news was first announced, the search found more than 117,000+ tweets discussing this topic. By Sept. 11 at 11:59 pm, the search found 216,630 mentions across all platforms. The overall sentiment of this search was 84.1% negative and 15.9% positive. It is difficult to gauge audience sentiment from sentiment analysis alone when discussing serious issues such as white supremacy. To get a better look at the conversation and the sentiment surrounding this topic, we paid close attention to the word cloud capturing the most common words and phrases associated with this search:

To gain even further understanding of the sentiment surrounding this news, we looked at the most commonly used hashtags related to this search. We found that #keepfighting, #flagoftreason, #mlk, and #virginia are at the top. When searching the keywords “Robert E Lee” and “Virginia,” we found that some of the top themes of discussion the day the news was announced were “U.S. War Heroes,” “Largest Confederate,” “Statue of Confederate Gen,” and “Good Riddance.”

Who exactly is engaging in this conversation? The majority of the mentions surrounding this topic are from male Twitter users in the 18-35 age demographic located in the United States. The top influencers on Twitter are primarily news outlets, including CNN Breaking News, NBC News, The New York Times, and ABC News. Corinne Perkins, the North America Editor for Reuters Pictures, and Ben Shapiro, a political commentator and media host, have also been active voices in the conversation.

Today: The statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, the largest Confederate statue remaining in the United States, is removed by a construction team in Richmond, Virginia. Photo by @evelynpix pic.twitter.com/k3uRUW0Qcr

— corinne_perkins (@corinne_perkins) September 8, 2021

Figuring out the decline and fall of the United States will not be difficult for future archaeologists https://t.co/wWbSv1JPza

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) September 9, 2021

The keyword search also revealed that Reddit users are engaging in r/News, r/AskAnAmerican, r/UpliftingNews, and r/Politics. One of the most popular posts in r/News received over 2.9K+ upvotes and 400+ comments, sparking a discussion about Confederate monument removals. This post also linked to an article from The Guardian detailing the events from Sept. 8.

The volume trend of this conversation has steadily declined since the news was announced. However, the conversation may not be over quite yet. There are still several hundred Confederate monuments in the United States being removed at rapid rates. While we can’t be sure what will happen to the remainder of the monuments, we’ll continue monitoring this topic and others from the Social Media Listening Center.

Author: Kendall Phillips

On Wednesday, Sept. 1, a Texas law banning nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy went into effect. The Supreme Court declined to block the law, making Texas the most restrictive state in the nation in regard to abortion procedures.

The ‘Texas Heartbeat Bill’ bars abortion procedures once cardiac activity can be detected from the embryo, which typically occurs around the sixth week of pregnancy. Since women do not usually know their period is late until the fourth week of pregnancy, this law allows around two weeks for women to obtain a pregnancy test and an abortion. This law does not make any exceptions for rape or incest. Medical professionals have questioned the ethics of such a restrictive law, especially because there are seven million women of child-bearing age in Texas who may be impacted by this Supreme Court decision.

What has the conversation been like on social media? At the Social Media Listening Center, we used a search for keywords “Texas” and “Abortion,” “Ban” and “Abortion,” and “Abortion” and “Healthcare.” While this is not a fully extensive search, it provides a glimpse into the online conversation.

On Sept. 1, when the news was first announced, the search found more than 554,000+ tweets discussing this topic. By Sept. 4 at 11:59 pm, the search found 905,799 mentions across all platforms. Unsurprisingly, the sentiment of this search was 96.2% negative and 3.8% positive. To get a better look at the conversation, we paid close attention to the word cloud capturing the most common words and phrases associated with this search:

To gain even further understanding of the sentiment surrounding this breaking news, we looked at the most commonly used hashtags related to this search. We found that #sb8, #bansoffourbodies, #scotus, and #roevwade are at the top. When searching the keywords “Texas” and “Abortion,” we found that some of the top themes of discussion the day the news was announced were “SB 8,” “Abortion Rights,” “Women,” and “Supreme Court.”

Unsurprisingly, this topic is especially resonating with female users in the United States within the 18-35 age bracket. Female users have also posted about this topic nearly twice as much as their male counterparts. Top influencers on Twitter include Mark Joseph Stern, CNN, President Biden, and Hillary Clinton.

BREAKING: By a 5–4 vote, with Roberts joining the liberals, the Supreme Court REFUSES to block Texas' six-week abortion ban.

Opinions here: https://t.co/elazEg3xdZ

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) September 2, 2021

A Twitter thread by Mark Joseph Stern, a staff writer for the online magazine Slate, was retweeted by over 10K users. President Biden also spoke out against Texas’ decision on Twitter prior to a formal briefing statement released by the White House, describing the law as “a blatant violation of the right established under Roe V. Wade.”

Texas SB8 will impair women's access to health care and, outrageously, deputizes private citizens to sue those they believe helped another person get a banned abortion.

It's a blatant violation of the right established under Roe V. Wade. We will protect and defend that right.

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 1, 2021

The keyword search also revealed that Reddit users are engaging in the r/Politics, r/Libertarian, r/Christianity, and r/Law subreddits. One of the most popular posts in r/Politics pointed out that Texas citizens are now allowed to carry a gun in public without a permit but cannot lawfully terminate a pregnancy. As of Sept. 2 at 3 pm, this post had received 3.3K upvotes and 600+ comments.

The online conversation is likely far from over. Since the Supreme Court has declined to block this law, it’s likely that other conservative states, such as Georgia and Alabama, will move to pass similar laws. As protests in Texas and lawsuits in state court continue to unfold, this topic will probably continue to trend for weeks to come. In the meantime, we’ll continue to monitor this topic and others from the Social Media Listening Center.

Author: Kendall Phillips

Authors: Brennan Schmidt, Amy Makin, & Madison Wilson

President Biden and his administration have been busy since the inauguration. The president has signed 29 executive orders over the last three weeks on issues ranging from climate change to the federal workforce to COVID-19 economic relief. The president’s three most recent executive orders address immigration. The Democratic Party has also been pushing for student loan forgiveness upwards of $50,000 per borrower. President Biden originally supported $10,000 of student loan forgiveness and is expected to address this request in coming days.

Social media has been buzzing over these executive orders. Between February 2-7, 2021, Twitter had 4.07M mentions of the following keywords: “Biden,” “plans,” “Joe Biden,” “Biden” and “plans,” “Biden” and “executive actions,” “president,” or “Biden Administration.” Conversation peaked around 6:00pm EST on February 2, 2021, with almost 900 thousand tweets about the president after signing executive orders on immigration, rejecting press photos while paying respect to fallen officer, Brian Sicknick, and providing a 1.3 billion dollar aid package to Puerto Rico for rebuilding from the 2017 hurricane and future hurricane preparation. Despite these actions, the hashtag #bidenlied was trending on Twitter. People were upset that his promises to forgive student loan debt and send additional stimulus checks were not yet delivered.

It is absolutely indefensible that Biden has yet to cancel one dollar of student loan debt. He could do it with a stroke of a pen, and he just hasn't.

— Emma Vigeland (@EmmaVigeland) February 3, 2021

In conjunction with that conversation, student loan debt and forgiveness were also trending topics on Reddit. Searching “Biden actions” brought up the r/Conservative, r/Biden_OnTheRecord, and r/politics subreddits. Several posts were made about President Biden supporting the idea of canceling $10,000 of debt per borrower and the pressure from the Democratic Party to forgive $50,000 of debt per borrower through executive action. Many users also discussed interest percentages, free secondary education, personal experiences with student loan debt, and the president’s approval rating.

Similar themes were found on Facebook, with 178k mentions of the president and over 1,300 uses of the #biden hashtag in conversation surrounding President Biden’s actions and new plans. Users again expressed mixed feelings – some calling the president a liar because of unkept promises, and others claiming he is doing a better job than Trump and expressing support for his quick action in office.

Conversation on TikTok has been relatively quiet since President Biden’s first day in office. The most popular TikTok posted with the #biden hashtag shows a news anchor dissenting the Christian argument against abortion because not everyone in the U.S. is Christian. This TikTok has 14.4 million views and 4.4 millions likes. The #biden hashtag has 7.7 billion views on TikTok, with tagged content from both those who support the president and those who do not. This pattern can be seen on all social media platforms.

What does this mean?

Talk of President Biden’s immigration executive orders was consistently discussed across social media platforms last week. This spurred side conversations about student loan forgiveness and other executive orders, with people expressing both positive and negative opinions on the matter. Some were upset about the president’s promises not being fulfilled, but the majority of people agreed that President Biden has done more in his first few weeks than most other presidents, including former President Trump. People are starting to question the president’s true intentions, as #bidenlied trended on Twitter. Support continues to fluctuate as President Biden signs more executive orders, but only time will tell how this work will affect his approval rating. One thing is for sure – President Biden has proved that he is ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work.

Full Analysis:

Purpose:
To view what people are saying about President Biden’s initial work in the White House.

Analysis Time Frame:
February 2-7, 2021. 

Overall Trends:
4.07M mentions and 38.7B impressions on Twitter

Sentiment:
4% Positive
75% Neutral
17% Negative

Keyword Groups:
“Biden”
“plans”
“Joe Biden”
“Biden” and “plans”
“Biden” and “executive actions”
“president”
“Biden Administration”

Popular Words:
“Biden Administration” was the most used phrase, with over 176k occurrences. Much of the conversation was about the 20 million lost COVID-19 vaccines and the aid package given to Puerto Rico for hurricane damage.

“Executive Orders” was the second most use phrase, with over 74,797 occurrences. Conversations revolved around the president’s campaign promises and the executive orders aimed at reforming the U.S. immigration system.

“Stimulus Checks” was another top phrase, used 24,261 times. This phrase correlated with the #bidenlied hashtag, as people claimed the president broke promises regarding stimulus check amounts.

Top Influencers:
@CNN
@NYTimes
@bbcworld
@theeconomist

South Carolina Democratic Debate: Oh, What a Night

By: Kinley DuRant, Nate Unger,  Kenedey Warde, Kyle Goodier, Lottie Smith, Hannah Abbe, Tanisha Tak, Holly Deal, Sarah Wilson, Elizabeth O’Donnell, Jackson Dugger, Abigail Godard,  Alexa Fulcher, Hannah Abee, Megan Courage

The Overview:

The South Carolina Democratic Debate took place on February 25, 2020 in Charleston, SC.  The seven candidates that participated included Mike Bloomberg, Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Biden, Tom Steyer, Bernie Sanders, and Pete Buttigieg. At the top of every hour starting at 3pm, the Social Medial Listening Center analyses the conversation surrounding the debate.

Here are some highlights on the eight hours surrounding the debate.

What to know:

• The total number of posts over all of the social media platforms at the end of the debate was 2,048,212
• Around 11 pm the demographics showed that there were 50.1% of females in the conversation and 49.9% males out of 285,509 posts during the hour.
• During the time of the debate, the conversation surrounding the candidates on Social Media reflected the following:
  • Bernie Sanders (55.3% Negative)
  • Joe Biden (61.3% Negative)
  • Mike Bloomberg (55.3% Negative)
  • Elizabeth Warren (59.8% Positive)
  • Pete Buttigieg (53.7% Negative)
  • Amy Kochlubar (77.9% Negative)
  • Tulsi Gabbard (55.6% Positive)

The conversation surrounding the Debate offered a variety of topics. Below there are several of the themes that were discussed on a variety of platfroms:

• Bloomberg, Biden, and Sanders are currently the most talked about
• Beat Trump
• Bernie is the only one who can beat Trump
• People mostly tweeting about who they want to be elected President
• Many questioning Sanders’ ability to be President
• People generally looking forward to the debate, if only for entertainment value
• Continued conversation on Biden misspeaking about election
• Many talking about Sanders’ honeymoon in Russia
• Conversation about Bloomberg’s alleged connections to Epstein
• Many upset at moderators, claiming that they are favoring certain candidates
• Some critiquing moderators for not being able to keep control of the debate and the candidates, not asking the right questions and having enough background info to push the questions

The share of voice numbers fluctuated throughout the debate. Highlighted in red represents a decline as the debate continued and green represents an increase in shared voices toward the end (8:00 pm – 10:00 pm):

• Bernie Sanders went from 54.4% at the beginning to 39.1% in the last hour of the debate
• Joe Biden went from 13.4% to 17.8%
• Mike Bloomberg from 7.9% to 12.6%
• Elizabeth Warren from 0.1% to 14.3%
• Pete Buttigieg from 8% to 7.6%
• Amy Kochlubar from 4.3% to 4.2%
• Tom Steyer from 1.2% to 3.9%
• Tulsi Gabbard from 0.7% to 0.5%

Now to the fun stuff. A few of the themes regarding bloopers and humor:

• Many making fun of Bloomberg’s height
• Biden accidentally said he is running for the Senate
• Outside the venue, both Republican and Democrat supporters joined together to sing Sweet Caroline
• Naked Cowboy – a cheap, but iconic, attraction in Times Square (NYC) Bloomberg promises to put a Naked Cowboy in every city; the joke falls flat and exemplifies a gap between Bloomberg and a majority of Americans who didn’t understand the reference.

A variety of Tweets and Instagram posts were sent out in the duration of the analysis, ranging from support and disagreements, to memes and bingo boards. Below are some examples of the commentary.

Several examples of the Instagram topic are seen surrounding the hashtag #demdebate:

The content on social media shows many of the thoughts and opinions of not just the candidates but the public opinion, as well. As a whole, the South Carolina Democratic Debate is a stepping stone in the journey for candidacy for the next democratic nominee who will run for the President of the United States in this next coming year. South Carolina gets to be one of 12 debates that have and will happen in the next coming months.

A Rally Around the Guns:  Richmond Virginia

By: Kinley DuRant & Kenedey Ward

What to Know about the Rally

Is there a better way to make a statement than getting 22,000 like-minded people together on Capitol Hill to protest a change in legislation?

This is exactly what occurred this past Monday, January 20, 2020. The group of gun-rights activist came to make a statement against Governor Ralph Northam’s proposition to limit the right to bear arms in the state of Virginia. One of the elements that must be notes about this day is the fact that the rally occurred on Martin Luther King Junior day as a representation of peace and unity.

Due to recent debate surrounding the Second Amendment right via both media and politics, this protest sticks out for more than one reason. Both Democratic and Republican party supporters were present at the rally, demonstrating a controversial topic can have a peaceful option.

Here are some basic things you should know:

• 22,000 in attendance with only one arrest made and a large majority of attendees were armed

• Based on the numbers: it appears that much of the democratic conversation focused too much on violence potential of this protest via social media prior to the protest 

• Holding the Rally on MLK Day was meant to send a message of peace

• The conversation surrounding the rally on social media was 55.7% positive
  • Most negative comments were focused on the governor of Virginia
  • Governor Northam using barricades in front of the capitol as a “safety barrier”

As seen in this graph, there was a big increase in the conversation surrounding the event on Monday:

Along with a variety of commentary and post from influences such as Tomi Lahren, where she notes the inclusivity in terms of the participants in the rally.

In the last Tweet, we see a variety of the commonly used hashtags that focus on the peacefulness of the rally as a whole, particularly given the number of guns at the event.

Twitter Update on the Rally

Based on the information that is mentioned on the conversation surrounding the event as well as the results of the rally, the overall impact demonstrated a positive display of protesting without incident; an idea practice of our First Amendment rights.  The Republican conversation post-rally honed in on the level of stability and harmony that the gun-right activists brought to defend their 2^nd Amendment Rights.

• All data was collected through an analyzation of the above keywords in the Social Media Listening Center on January 21, 2020 dating posts back the last 7 days.