Thanks @ZNConsulting for running the #EUinfluencer event again this year, and I am happy to finally triumph over @berlaymonster https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="đź’Ş" title="Angespannter Bizeps" aria-label="Emoji: Angespannter Bizeps">

But seriously, we need to think a bit more about this idea.

If I am influencing anything in EU affairs, it sure doesn& #39;t feel like it.

A thread...
I am lucky. I was an early adopter of Twitter. I started using this tool before loads of people in Brussels had even heard of it.

That& #39;s how I have 60k followers.

It& #39;s not because I am any good.

It& #39;s because I was early.
That - tying into the discussion with @KingKritick & @JusticeLeagueEU - is something I see as a responsibility.

That people gave me the benefit of the doubt to help me get a decent audience means I ought to act towards others the way I& #39;d expect them to act towards me.
That means to try to be as fair to an anonymous account with a few followers that makes a good point as I would be towards someone much higher up the Twitter foodchain than me.

And to try to boost voices traditionally under represented in the Brussels EU bubble.
But - try as I might at a personal level - I nevertheless see a coarsening of the debate on Twitter, and people not listening to others and not giving each other the benefit of the doubt.
Whereas 5 years ago if you made a good point you might have a MEP or Commissioner reply to you, now you can basically forget it.

You can do complicated and detailed analysis, but it feels like you& #39;re tweeting that into a black hole.
Putting it another way: the influence I may once have had in this environment - towards those who have offline influence or an audience much larger than mine - has dissipated.
Take #BrexitDiagram - the thing that I am I suppose best known for. The engagement with those diagrams is so minimal so as to mean I& #39;m not sure it& #39;s even worthwhile making them any more.
Do MEPs, Commissioners, MPs, journalists engage with them? Pretty much never.

Maybe they might see them once in a while, but I cannot know.
Instead if I push my audience& #39;s emotional buttons - making cheap shots at the expense of my opponents, or using humour to highlight the absurdity of the politics we face - the social media stats go off the scale.

But that& #39;s not influence. That& #39;s delivering an emotional response.
I end up feeling like some sort of a community manager, somehow a sort of curator of my tribe. But that tribe cannot be deployed to make any real change to anything in politics in the EU.

It& #39;s a strange feeling.
You can follow @jonworth.
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