Efforts of international authorities and conservationists to conserve the species They may lose focus Through discussions generated in social networks. A group of researchers has analyzed the topics and topics that are being implemented on this platform in the midst of the legislation being promoted in the UK.
Academics from the University of Reading and the University of Sheffield in England, Analyze hundreds of tweets about hunting animals which are eventually displayed as prizes. Among their findings, they found that 7 percent of opinions on the topic were offensive, and this was compared to the level of toxicity when making judgments about partisan issues on social networks.
The journal published the results of the investigation conducted by the English researchers on March 9 Biology protection. Our main result It defines 12 categories that describe situations of people searching for “trophies,” as they elaborate on in the summary.
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Lead author of the study, Dr Luke Evans, of the University of Reading’s School of Biological Sciences, explained comments on the subject Every day they become more hostile Anger grows as celebrities and politicians voice opinions in favor of hunting.
The academic commented to the scientific journal Phys Controversial issues involving trophy hunting such as killing Cecil the lion In Zimbabwe in 2015, I caused an explosion of angry people’s tweets.”
As a result of this hostile and toxic climate, two hard blocs have been created where different viewpoints on animal conservation and public policy makers are not heard.
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In recent months, the Parliament of Great Britain debated Hunting trophy bill, where it is proposed to ban the import of trophy hunting. “Such a law should be discussed and debated properly by experts and the public, but it is almost impossible to have this discussion online without seeing the extreme anti-hunting views,” the researcher explained.
the doctor Luke Evans made it clear that this legislation could have a huge impact In the conservation of species around the world, as there will be positive and negative results in different places. That’s why it’s important Legislation is checked independentlywithout affecting the opinions issued on social networking sites in the debate.
To reach these conclusions, the research team examined 500 tweets and determined the tones for communicating opinions. The academics found that 350 comments about hunting animals express sadness, anger or disgust at the suffering the species goes through.
All analyzed posts have been anonymized to protect people’s anonymity.
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The researchers explained thatOnline discussions can be unproductive Our findings may be important to stakeholders who wish to actively participate in the discussion.” Despite the fact that the team’s initial intentions were to investigate from a neutral point of view, the results of the investigation were quite shocking to them.
Dr Vicky Bolt from the University of Reading explained that there are many people who detract from hunting the animals, but it is important that legislation does not attempt to harm international efforts that have been made to conserve the species.
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