Fall Out: A Year of Political Mayhem

by Tim Shipman

Corbyn’s digital outriders included keyboard warriors like Zarb-Cousin, Aaron Bastani of Novara Media, The Canary, Sqwawkbox, and Thomas Clark of Another Angry Voice. Some were members of a WhatsApp group called Digital Fightback. Their points of contact included James Schneider and Karie Murphy. Most simply did their own thing. Clark was just a thirty-something from Nottinghamshire who posted 163 articles in seven weeks from his home, with headlines such as ‘How many of Jeremy Corbyn’s policies do you actually disagree with?’, but nonetheless had the same reach online as the Sun newspaper. Zarb-Cousin said, ‘I think this election is the first where social media played a pivotal role. The top ten links shared on Facebook during the general election campaign were either pro-Labour or anti-Tory, achieving roughly half a million shares each.’15