There were astonishing scenes at the European Parliament yesterday as Nigel Farage turned up.
Eurocrat Farage, an establishment MEP in 1999, is said to have drawn gasps and double-takes from onlookers as he entered the EU Parliament building ahead of the questioning by MEPs of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg.
The former UKIP leader was famously at one point ranked 745th out of 746 MEPs for attendance, beating only a single MEP who had spent several months in hospital.
Earlier in the day, the former Ukip leader had printed off a graph, which was proudly displayed to his 1.2m Twitter followers.
Later today I will confront Mark Zuckerberg about bias on Facebook. Sign up here so you never miss an update: https://t.co/CWHj778G0H pic.twitter.com/5gkHcKq4o1
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) May 22, 2018
It is not known whether he took his little graph to Brussels with him, though he did describe himself to Zuckerberg as “the EU’s largest Facebook user.”
Whilst some have suggested Facebook ratings are a trivial matter, fringe politicians have in the past resorted to using Facebook popularity in lieu of electoral gains.
Follow me on facebook: http://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage http://fb.me/HnZ7HEqa
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) October 5, 2010
Interesting: Nigel Farage has more Facebook "Likes" (119k) than either Clegg (89k) or Miliband (76k).
— Roger Helmer (@RogerHelmerMEP) February 5, 2015
Farage also accused Facebook of changing its algorithm to adversely affect conservatives on the site.
He said, “You’ve changed your algorithms, and it’s led to a substantial drop to views and engagements for those who’ve got right of centre political opinions. On average we’re about 25 per cent down of the course of this year.”
It is unclear whether the algorithms caused Farage’s seven electoral defeats.
