The past 2 weeks has been extremely eventful for the residents of Toronto, Canada’s largest city. Toronto has been pushed back once again reluctantly onto the international stage. No it doesn’t have to do with the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games, though they did recently make mistakes.
Toronto though has been pushed into the international spot light because of its Mayor Rob Ford. Remember how Gawker’s John Cook discovered and watched a video of Rob Ford smoking Crack Cocaine back in May. Gawker wasn’t able to pay the hefty $200,000 price tag to acquire the video but they did run a crowd-sourcing campaign which hit the goal, only for the seller to go underground. It’s been quiet on this subject till recently when Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair made a press announcement, admitting the video does exist. A video clip of that press conference is below:
The international press have been all over this subject. With ABC News (US), The Guardian (UK), The Daily Mail (UK), AFP (US), CNN (US), and New York Daily News (US) are just a few major publications mentioning this story.
While we believe the topic and all the negative press doesn’t help Toronto. We wanted to analyze all the twitter conversations and dig a bit into the data. How many people were talking about the topic? Who was the most poplar user and what were some related topics.
The Twitter Users with the most popular Tweets related to #RobFord were:
#RobFord After having said to so many politicians ‘Are you on crack?!’ refreshing one can finally say ‘Actually, yes, I am’
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 3, 2013
This picture just confirms there’s a Simpsons moment for everything. #robford #toronto pic.twitter.com/LuLjh9mXhL
— Matthew Kang (@MatthewKangCBC) November 5, 2013
Matthew Kang from CBC in second with 1,206 RTs and 345 Favorites. A majority of Twitter users are posting original tweets rather then RTs or replying to posts and a good chuck of these people (about 50%) are using the web to post these awesome original tweets.
Other influential people that are talking about the #RobFord situation:
omg if this pic isn’t viral yet it needs to be #robford #crackmayor pic.twitter.com/gdx3eoP8nJ — laurDIY ☾ (@laurDIY) November 5, 2013
“I was so drunk I don’t remember if I smoked crack cocaine” is a good, but maybe not great, excuse. #robford — Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) November 5, 2013
LOL I can’t stop laughing #RobFord pic.twitter.com/UzKOAJjY0A — Peter Kash FLOW 93-5 (@PeterKash) November 6, 2013
#Breaking: #RobFord: “Yes, I have smoked crack cocaine.” Toronto mayor made statement to reporters outside his office. More to come. — TorontoStar (@TorontoStar) November 5, 2013
Great jokes everyone. Now seriously. Put this much effort into Voting next time. #TOpoli #RobFord
— Mark Forward (@Mark_Forward) November 5, 2013
#inadrunkenstupor Well, at least the upcoming film adaptation of #RobFord‘s career looks pretty epic. pic.twitter.com/fOhcgY3kUP
— Jeffery J. Timbrell (@JJTIMBRO) November 6, 2013
The #RobFord crack scandal explained as a graphic novel in the players’ own words: http://t.co/Rs3vJVIcGl pic.twitter.com/GGjoqt16Nq — CBC Top Stories (@CBCNews) November 6, 2013
41 Black men were jailed in the hunt for the crack video. 1 Black male posing w/ #RobFord was murdered,the other was shot+jailed. #CdnPoli — Rachel Décoste (@RachelDecoste) November 6, 2013
He needs to get help…”@BennettOBrian: Check out my newest #RobFord cartoon for National Newswatch #TOpoli http://t.co/DlMT9HGFfD” #cdnpoli
— Carolyn Bennett (@Carolyn_Bennett) November 6, 2013
New study shows that Newfoundlanders are Canada’s No. 2 beer consumers. Curse you #RobFord #inadrunkenstupor
— Mark Critch (@markcritch) November 6, 2013
