Playing It Safe: Lawmakers Are Tweeting Less After Weiner’s Scandal

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Reuters / Brendan McDermid

In the aftermath of Rep. Anthony Weiner getting caught for sending lewd images of himself through Twitter, Congressmen have been tweeting less, reports The Hill.

(LIST: The 10 Best Weinergate Tweets)

It’s impossible to say whether the drop in tweeting by lawmakers is attributable to Weiner’s problems, as last week did include the Memorial Day holiday. But the numbers are significant; politicians tweeted about 28% less the week of May 30 to June 3 than the previous week, according to a study by TweetCongress.

The day Weiner held his press conference — when he took responsibility for sending out lewd tweets — there was a decline in tweets by Democratic lawmakers. On Monday, June 6, there were only 120 tweets from Democrats. That’s about 30% less than the frequency of tweets two Mondays before. On the Republican side, 338 tweets were sent the Monday of Weiner’s presser, about an 18% drop from two weeks before.

Will Weiner’s case scare politicians forever? We at newsfeed hope they revive their tweeting…for appropriate purposes of course.

(LIST: Top 10 Twitter Controversies)