This week in the Digital Debate we analyzed what Twitter users posted about the constituent process and the work of the Convention. The conversation on social networks was predominantly marked by the results of the general elections on Sunday, November 21, and by the controversial statements made by Johannes Kaiser, a congressman elected for the Republican Party. The end of the analysis revealed an increase in content related to a an alleged party of which some Constituents supposedly participated in Concepción.

Summary
198,600 tweets
165,800 retweets (83%)
17,400 replies (9%)

Words

The words used the most on Twitter publications this week Were “chile”, “proceso”, “boric”, “democracia”, “baradit”, “derecho”, “concepción”, “diciembre”, and “presidente”.

As soon as the results of the general elections on Sunday (21) became known, a debate started on social networks about the developments within the Convention and about how the process would change depending on who wins the presidential election on December 19.

The words “baradit”, “johannes”, “káiser”, “kaiser”, and “mujeres” are Related to the statements made by the congressman elected for the Republican Party Johannes Kaiser, who questioned in YouTube video whether
women’s suffrage “had been a good idea”. These statements, as well as more of the congressman’s
comments and thoughts that came to light, were widely criticized. In response to the criticism, users who support the candidate commented that the Constituent Jorge Baradit has also made misogynist comments in the past.

This type of comparison was also made regarding the presidential candidate Gabriel Boric, who was accused of sexual harassment in 2012. The hashtags used this week, which will be analyzed below, were also related to this debate.

Hashtags

This week, the major hashtags used on Twitter regarding the target topic were #apruebo, #contigochv, #elecciones2021cl, #rechazodesalida2022, #regiónconstituyente #cooperativacontigo, #kastpresidente2022, #boriccamaleon, #boricpresidente, #boricacosador, #feministasdecarton, #izquierdamiserable, and #concepción. The hashtags #elecciones2021cl, #kastpresidente2022 and #boricpresidente are related to the elections on Sunday. In turn, the hashtags #boricacosador and #feministasdecarton are related to Gabriel Boric’s harassment accusation. Lastly, the hashtags #concepción and #regiónconstituyente are related to the regional withdrawal of the Constituent Convention from the Biobío Region.

Timeline

The highest frequency of tweets per hour was registered on Friday, September 26 at 10am.

Tweets with the most retweets

The tweets with the highest number of retweets were published by the accounts of the Senator and former presidential candidate Yasna Provoste, of @Asuperbia and of the Chilean actor Renato Munster.

The presidential candidate for the Nuevo Pacto Social, who obtained 11.6% of the votes and did not make it to the final ballot, declared her support on Tuesday for the Apruebo Dignidad candidate, Gabriel Boric: “On December 19, I will vote in favor of peace and reunion. I will vote for the center-left to ensure democracy and the Rule of Law. I will vote to emphasize our commitment with the constituent process. On December 19, I will vote for @gabrielboric”, she wrote, sharing an image of her complete public statement.

In turn, the user @Asuperbia mentioned the controversy regarding Johannes Kaiser’s statements: “Fernando Villegas was attacked by The Clinic with politicized testimonies, destroying his career on television. Now, Johannes Kaiser is being attacked by a video shown without context. Jorge Baradit is a Constituent with more than 30 misogynist tweets, but he’s talking freely on TV. What’s the title of the movie?”.

Lastly, Renato Munster analyzed the electoral results in the Araucanía Region and shared the following tweet: “Kast’s result in the Araucanía Region is a slap on the face of all those who justified the armed groups sowing terror in that region. Especially the constituents who exalted armed struggles, ignoring the real victims and people who want to live without fear”.

Tweet 1:
On December 19, I will vote in favor of peace and reunion. I will vote for the center-left to ensure democracy and the Rule of Law. I will vote to emphasize our commitment with the constituent process.
On December 19, I will vote for @gabrielboric.

Tweet 2:
Fernando Viellegas was attacked by The Clinic with politicized testimonies, destroying his career on television. Now, Johannes Kaiser is being attacked by a video shown without context. Jorge Baradit is a Constituent with more than 30 misogynist tweets, but he’s talking freely on TV. What’s the title of the movie?

Tweet 3:
Kast’s result in the Araucanía Region is a slap on the face of all those who justified the armed groups sowing terror in that region. Especially the constituents who exalted armed struggles, ignoring the real victims and people who want to live without fear

Analysis of networks and communities

This week, the communities had a similar behavior to that of previous weeks. However, there were influential accounts of political actors who had not appeared previously, as a result of Sunday’s elections.

The most influential account was that of Senator Yasna Provoste due to her publication supporting the candidate Gabriel Boric. Other influential accounts included the Constituent Marcela Cubillos, @Asuperbia, Renato Munster, the district 11 congressman Gonzalo de la Carrera, the Senador Felipe Kast, and Bernardo Fontaine.

Gonzalo de la Carrera criticized the Convention’s work in a tweet that obtained a lot of shares, announcing that he would not vote to extend the deadline in Congress. In turn, Felipe Kast made it to the list after his party declared support for the Republican Party’s presidential candidate.

Methodological note

The survey was carried out through the Trendsmap application with the following query: (constituyente OR constituyentes OR constitucional OR constitución OR constitucion OR convencion OR convención OR convencionales OR convencional) OR ( #convencionconstituyente OR #convenciónconstituyente OR #convencionconstitucional OR #convenciónconstitucional OR #convencion OR #convención) -acusación -excepción

Through this survey, we sought to find Twitter conversations related to the work of the Constitutional Convention and the constituent process between Monday, November 22 at 12am and Friday, November 26 at 2pm. To this end, conversations related to the constitutional indictment against President Sebastián Piñera and publications related to the renewal of the state of emergency in the southern macro-zone of the country were filtered out. We collected data on conversations produced by users located in Chile and in Spanish.

* The Digital Democracy Room is a project of FGV DAPP in Brazil in partnership with Animal Político, Bolivia Verifica, Chequeado, Confidencial, Espacio Público, Linterna Verde and Ojo Público. It’s goal is to monitor and analyze the digital conversations regarding the electoral context.

The analysis is available the website of Espacio Público here.