The Ratio / Ratioed

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POLITICO POLITICO @politico The 2020 presidential election was rife with allegations of voting machine hacks that were later debunked. Yet there are real risks that hackers could tunnel into voting equipment and other election infrastructure to try to undermine Tuesday's vote. 11:40 AM - Nov 7, 2022 Hootsuite Inc. 559 Retweets 2,521 Quote Tweets 1,145 Likes 241.0 27 UNITED STATES PORTAL politico.com 6 election security threats to watch for on Election Day Hacking threats and disinformation fears loom large as voters head to the polls. www 4 1

G The Guardian @guardian Do you want free speech to thrive? Then it has to be regulated, now more than ever | Simon Jenkins The. Guardian Opinions 22 theguardian.com Do you want free speech to thrive? Then it has to be regulated, now more than... The online safety bill in the UK is shaping up to be a censor's nightmare, but we need to take this debate seriously, says Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins 3:59 PM - Aug 15, 2022. Echobox 125 Retweets 1,406 Quote Tweets 293 Likes 27 (→

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About

The Ratio or Ratioed refers to an unofficial Twitter law which states that if the amount of replies to a tweet greatly outnumbers the number of retweets and likes, then the tweet is bad. Additionally, "to ratio" a tweet means to make a quote retweet or reply that manages to get more likes and retweets than the quoted post.

Origin

The Ratio began being noticed on Twitter in early 2017. On March 7th, Twitter user @85mf^[1] tweeted a screenshot of a tweet by House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz which had 701 replies yet only 23 retweets and 108 likes. He captioned it, "Nothing on this site makes me happier than reply-to-RT ratios like this. That is the ratio of someone who fuuuuucked up" (shown below, left). On March 15th, user @Brilligerent^[2] tweeted "If the Replies:RT ratio is greater than 2:1, you done messed up" (shown below, right).

Mike @85mf Mar7 INothing on this site makes me happier than reply-to-RT ratios like this. That is the ratio of someone who fuuuuucked up. Jason Chaffetz Φ @jasoninthehouse-5h Full Committee Business Meeting via @gopoversight oversight.house.gov/ markup/full-co... わ701 ﹀ 23 108 わ14 3 28

Brian @Briligerent + Follow If the Replies:RT ratio is greater than 2:1, you done messed up. RETWEETSLIKES 27 63

Spread

On April 11th, Luke O'Neil of Esquire^[3] published an article in which he outlined the theory of The Ratio, bringing the theory its widest audience yet. O'Neil referenced several tweets related the the United Airlines Passenger Removal as examples of The Ratio at work. He illustrated how United Airlines' tweeted response about the incident gained over 61,000 replies and merely 6,700 likes, and that the 10:1 ratio was evidence of the tweet's poor reception.

United @united + Follow ﹀ United CEO response to United Express Flight 3411 This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers. Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with the authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened. We are also reaching out to this passenger to talk directly to him and further address and resolve this situation -Oscar Munoz, CEO, United Airlines RETWEETSLIKES 20,863 6,717 9:27 AM -10 Apr 2017 from Houston, TX わ61K 21K 6.7K

The Independent^[7] wrote about O'Neil's Ratio Law two days after the article was published in Esquire. Following O'Neil's article, Weird Twitter and leftist Twitter began to take notice of ratios on particularly bad or controversial tweets. Popular examples include a tweet by Virginia gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart,^[4] who tweeted "Nothing is worse than a Yankee telling a Southerner that his monuments don't matter." Twitter user @Papapishu^[5] pointed out that the tweet's Ratio, which at the time stood at 1.4 thousand replies to 38 retweets, was "off the charts" (shown below).

1.4K 38 間78 Chris Person Papapishu Apr 25 dear god the ratio on this is off the charts pic.twitter.com/eqMYzlgbNf

On April 26th, O'Neil published another article in Esquire^[6] about The Ratio, investigating a tweet by CNN pundit Chris Cillizza^[8] in which he linked to an article he wrote in defense of Ivanka Trump which as of May 2nd, 2017, has over 1,400 replies and only 23 retweets (shown below).