Twitterers triumph over Daily Mail
Gipsy poll overwhelmed
22 June 2009 10:06 GMT / By Duncan Geere
Twitter users on 19 June flooded an online poll from the Daily Mail asking "Should the NHS allow gipsies to jump the queue?" with "Yes" answers. The survey was eventually taken down, but not before the vote reached 96% "Yes".
The poll attracted widespread ridicule from various communities across the Internet, but the power of Twitter to spread "micro-memes" meant that the influx of users wanting to pour scorn on the Daily Mail was so great that the newspaper's servers nearly collapsed under the pressure.
The crowd-sourced campaign was also backed by UK-based psychologists. An email went round to nearly every psychologist in the country encouraging them to vote "Yes" to demonstrate "how to phrase a neutral question".
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