Twitter and the Roman Empire

Viewing the distribution of tweets over the former Roman Empire, including southern Europe, the UK, and North Africa. Little evidence remains of the previous distinction between civilized and primitive. If anything twitter use seems to be higher among 'barbarian' people's in places like Holland.

There is a striking decrease in tweeting as one moves south in Europe, with the highest levels in the UK and Holland and levels dropping as you move south. As you move south the pattern becomes concentration, with Madrid, Istanbul and Rome clearly standing out.

Notice the line of heavy tweeting on the Spanish Coast. People seem to tweet a lot when they are having fun. Also notice how less developed Tweeting is the the nations of the Arab Spring. This raises doubts that social network technologies are a key factor in driving change. Though Spain has seen large protests the nations which have seen the most change recently also have modest tweeting, while the nations that have the most tweeting have elected Conservative governments in response to the Financial Crisis. The Islamic nation with the most tweeting is Turkey and not Egypt. Turkey has also just re-elected a pro-business center-right Islamic party.

This distribution tells a great deal, it shows the massive differences between technical and economic development in the area inside and around the EU. What it does not support is the idea that Web 3.0 technology is anything more than a useful tool in modern protest movement.