Not a toxic cesspit, but more of a paddling pool

There’s no doubt that for certain sections of the community – trans people, young women and girls, professional footballers and managers – Twitter can be a vile place, as dozens, hundreds, thousands of people sign up to dish out barely-moderated abuse, frequently from anonymous accounts.

The only response is to ignore the platform. You can’t see it and remain unaffected. But for Guernsey politics, Twitter is a relatively benign place.

The Guernsey Party set themselves against it early on, riled, it seems, by the fact that most Guernsey politics followers on Twitter, and indeed, most of the deputies on the platform, appear to be more aligned to ‘Team Gavin’ – if such an entity exists.

A Guernsey politics Twitter pile-on might involve a dozen people at most, barely a political Royal Rumble. Facebook is where people are more likely to be outspoken, somewhat bizarrely, as they are inevitably more identifiable on that platform.

Over the weekend Twitter hosted a discussion – would P&R have had more success with the Tax Review had Policy & Resources, and its members, made more effort to play it out on social media?

The States has made good use of social media as a broadcast function. But social thrives on interaction, which staff can’t do and politicians, more than likely, won’t do.

Just as when they turn up on your doorstep (or used to) at election time, deputies can make themselves appear more human by engaging directly on social media, but whether they could swing a policy, or enhance public understanding, is doubtful.