First Presidential Debate Breaks Twitter Record
Twitter is already claiming victory in Monday night’s first presidential debate.
The social networking platform confirms that the showdown between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton was the most-tweeted debate ever. All told, there were 17.1 million interactions on Twitter about the event, according to Nielsen’s Social Content Ratings.
During the 2012 presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, Twitter was still a private company. At the time, the Denver debate between Obama and Romney became the most-tweeted political event in Twitter history with 10.3 million tweets during the 90-minute broadcast.
Trump was mentioned in 6.3 million tweets, while Hillary was mentioned in 2.7 million tweets.
Nielsen also reports that there were 65.9 million interactions on Facebook about the debate. That brings the total social media interactions on Facebook and Twitter to 83 million from 24 million people in the U.S.
Related Stories
The top moment came when Trump told the audience that he has a good temperament (above). His comments about stop and frisk were the second-biggest moment of the night on Twitter, followed by his exchange with Clinton around their plans for defeating ISIS.
The most-tweeted topics during the debate were the economy, foreign affairs, energy and the environment, terrorism and guns.
A Trump tweet from November 2012 in which he blamed the Chinese for global warming was the most-retweeted post of the night.
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2012
Facebook, meanwhile, says that there were 55 million views of debate-related Faceook Live videos.
The top moment on Facebook was the same as Twitter’s top moment, when Trump said that his strongest asset is his temperament. Top issues on Facebook included taxes, ISIS, race, the economy, and crime and criminal justice.
Trump also had the largest share of the conversation on Facebook with 79 percent of the total chatter, compared to Clinton’s 21 percent share.
The Hollywood Reporter will update this story with the official Twitter numbers on Tuesday.
Related Stories
Sept. 27, 9:30 a.m. Updated with data from Facebook.
Sept. 28, 8:05 a.m. Updated with data from Nielsen.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qbvLpbCwp5%2BZv6a8zqurnqpemLyue82erqxnoKS5qsDInKpmppWswHCyyKuqrWWgp7K0tcOepa2hkaF6pbHBmqueZZKnsqK30marsKGkqbKzeZFmcGxqZ2yGcA%3D%3D
