Twitter users want UK to stay in EU, Irish researchers find

Twitter users are less likely to support Brexit, according to a new study undertaken by Irish data scientists.

Researchers at the Insight Centre for Data Analytics spent the last fortnight analysing some 1.5 million English-language tweets that mentioned the UK's referendum on Europe. They found that as of Tuesday, 62 per cent of tweets were in favour of Britain remaining in the European Union.

Not surprisingly, the study found most referendum-related tweets originated in the UK, followed by users in the Netherlands. Tweets from Ireland made up just 3 per cent of the total, while Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Italy each made up less than 2 per cent of the total number of tweets on Brexit.

Researchers used anonymous data and set up an algorithm to categorise tweets automatically. The researchers did not record Twitter profiles or whether tweets were retweeted, liked or went viral.

While the debate over Brexit has become somewhat heated at times, researchers said they experienced some difficulties judging which were pro or anti Brexit tweets because of British people’s ironic disposition.

"The irony, especially the unique British dry sense of humour, was a challenge," said Dr Brian Davis. "For example, one tweet read: 'Everybody tell all their #Brexit colleagues at work that the referendum is June 24 - they'll believe anything'.

“It’s not an explicit stay or leave but an implicit criticism of supporters of leaving the EU and this is extremely hard to categorise.

More than 400 researchers are employed by Insight, a joint initiative between University College Dublin, the National University of Ireland at Galway, University College Cork, and Dublin City University. The centre was established in 2013 by Science Foundation Ireland with funding of €75 million.