On Wednesday 7 August, Stephen Fry published an open letter to David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in which he urged them to strip Russia of the 2014 Winter Olympics due to recent anti-gay laws.
Fry stated that Vladimir Putin “is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did to the Jews” before referencing Edmund Burke by asking whether IOC members would be those ‘good’ people that allow evil to triumph by doing nothing.
He concluded his letter by acknowledging David Cameron’s determination in supporting gay rights in the UK and urged the Prime Minister to act now.
Unsurprisingly, a letter of this nature written by Fry, who has 6 million Twitter followers, had a significant impact on the social network site.
Using YouGov’s social media analysis tool, SoMA, we can see that on the day the letter was published, a staggering 51.8% of UK Twitter users were exposed to a mention of Stephen Fry.
SoMA is also able to offer insight into exactly what was said as well as by whom it was heard. For example, the most popular words mentioned alongside Stephen Fry on 7 August were ‘letter’, ‘Olympics’, ‘Russia’, and ‘Cameron’. In terms of the demographic audiences that were exposed to a mention of Fry on 7 August, we know that 54% were male, 15% were aged 18-24 and 17% earn £50k+.
‘Photo courtesy of Getty Images’
