A Twitter-Based Event Analysis of 'Computer-Based Political Action' on Intellectual Property (PIPA)

Abstract

In protest of the bill “Protect Intellectual Property Act,” before the United States Senate, a number of Internet companies participated in a 24 hour Internet blackout. This paper summarizes some of the events and approaches used as part of that computer-based political action that ultimately led to postponing the bill. A range of social media, including Twitter and Facebook were used by both supporters and the opposition. This paper specifically investigates use of Twitter and Facebook by Senators. I find the Twitter use rate by Senators differs across co-sponsors’ and non-co-sponsors’ PIPA Tweets. Further, I find that the number of Tweets and re-Tweets around the blackout event and the postponement event vary systematically by group. In addition, in some cases Twitter Tweets reference a Facebook message, and for those Tweets I find key characteristics such Twitter re-Tweets and Facebook shares are highly correlated.

Keywords: PIPA, SOPA, Twitter, Facebook, Computer-based Political Action, Social Media

JEL Classification: C8, L63, L86, D72, D7