1. Background
A dialogue between Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak and non-government organisations (NGO) was scheduled to be held at PWTC on Friday, June 5th 2015 (9 am – 11 am) [1]. The event was organised by the Malaysian Volunteer Lawyers Association (SukaGuam) and titled, #Nothing2Hide. Former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir was also expected to attend [2].
Minutes before the event was due to start, the IGP announced that the event was cancelled to ensure public order [3]. Despite that the audience stayed on even after confirmation that the PM would not be attending [4].
Rumours started circulating on Twitter that the PM was ‘scared’ of Tun Dr.Mahathir, who took to the stage at 10.33 AM [5]. Minutes later, the police asked him to stop and prevented him from continuing. This sparked further outrage online.
At 5.17 PM, Najib Razak tweeted a statement saying that he was ready to have a dialogue with NGOs provided it was held in a peaceful environment [6]. Remarks about Najib Razak and #Nothing2Hide continued over the next few days.
2. Our Analysis
We performed opinion-based analysis on 1000 users based in Malaysia who tweeted about the #Nothing2Hide event, Najib Razak and related terms from June 5th – June 8th 2015. The margin of error is +/- 3.1%.
Users were selected based on their tweet content and activity during this period. Sampling was done per-state based on the current estimated user population.
Spammers, news agencies and accounts with automated tweets were not included in the sample.
From this dataset we analysed the individual Twitter user timelines to determine their opinion. This took their tweets, retweets and conversations into account.
Our goal was to gauge the response by users in Malaysia to the Prime Minister not showing up at the event. We focused our analysis on their opinion of the PM and their general response to his absence at the event. Opinions about Tun Dr. Mahathir were not included as part of the detailed analysis.
Based on this analysis we categorised users as belonging to one of the following categories:
- Positive
- Neutral
- Negative (general)
- Negative (directed to @NajibRazak)
The results are shown in the following chart:
Category | Users | (%) |
Positive | 20 | 2.00 |
Neutral | 25 | 2.50 |
Negative (general) | 677 | 67.70 |
Negative (directed to @NajibRazak) | 278 | 27.80 |
The combined total for users with Negative opinions is 955 users, or 95.5% of the total.
3. Findings
What follows are the findings for each category.
3.1 Positive
20 users (2.00%)
These users were supportive of the PM being absent. Among the reasons they stated were:
- Support cancellation of event as Najib Razak does not need to deal direct with media/bloggers/public. Because he is the PM he is ‘above that’.
- Felt that the negative backlash was over-blown and felt the need to express support for the PM
- Supportive of Najib Razak’s statement of having a dialogue when more peaceful and secure
- Saw no value of seeing Tun Dr.Mahathir and Najib Razak debating
- Trusted the police statement that the venue was not secure
3.2 Neutral
25 users (2.50%)
These users tweeted no negative or positive remarks and did not appear to be passing judgement on anyone. They expressed the following sentiment:
- Open to the possibility that Najib Razak had good reason not to come
- Hopeful for a rescheduling of the event
3.3 Negative (general)
677 users (67.70%)
Largely comprised of insults and people making fun of Najib Razak indirectly by referencing his name, title or using terms like ‘Jibby’. Remarks similar to the following were common in English and Bahasa Malaysia:
- “Shame on you”
- “I am ashamed of this country / our PM”
- “You (the PM) are a coward”
- “PM Najib must resign”
- “I have lost faith in you”
Other common types of remarks included:
- Disappointment at the PM not showing up as they had been looking forward to it
- Disbelief on the security issue
- Demanding right to know what is going on with 1MDB
- Lost faith/respect for UMNO/BN
- Pity Najib but feel he needs to go
- Najib needs to go to save BN
3.4 Negative (directed to @NajibRazak)
278 users (27.80%)
These were users who tweeted remarks directly to @NajibRazak. These were comprised of the same remarks mentioned above, with a higher incidence of foul language and name-calling. By tagging the PM publicly these users showed that they were not concerned about the PM reading their tweets.
4. Additional Opinions
Users tweeting about the #Nothing2Hide event also expressed the following opinions/sentiment on related topics. This listing was summarised based on a manual reading of a sample of 3,036 users in Malaysia, inclusive of the sample used for the above analysis.
These expressions are not indicative of their views on Najib Razak’s absence at the event, but we are including it here for informative reasons:
- Expressions of support for Tun Dr.Mahathir for speaking up
- Expressions of pity and outrage when the police stopped Tun Dr.Mahathir from speaking
- Using the #Nothing2Hide hashtag to make personal confessions. It is worth noting that many of the users we saw engaging in this meme were also retweeting tweets about the event and criticism of Najib Razak. This shows that they were aware of what was going on.
- Paranoia by a minority of users who felt that pitting Malays against each other was exactly what non-Malays and/or DAP want. Whether they were referring to debates between Mahathir supporters and Najib supporters or criticism of Najib by Malays was not always clear.
5. Opinion by language
A higher percentage of Bahasa Malaysia speakers belonged to the ‘Negative (directed to @NajibRazak) category compared to English speakers and Bilingual speakers. The division of percentages is:
- 22.31% of all English speakers
- 30.55% of all Bahasa Malaysia speakers
- 21.79% of all Bilingual speakers
This means Bahasa Malaysia speakers were more likely to direct their disapproval towards the PM compared to the other speakers.
6. About the Population Sample
The results reflect a young demographic, by our estimates to be between 18 – 30 years old. Users were predominantly Bahasa Malaysia speakers:
- 67% Bahasa Malaysia speakers
- 25% English speakers
- 8% Bilingual speakers
7. Conclusion
The analysis indicates that the overwhelming majority of Twitter users in Malaysia disapproved of Prime Minister Najib Razak’s absence at the event.
We found 3 main contributing factors that influenced users to voice negative opinions against Najib Razak:
1. The PM saying he had darah pahlawan (warrior’s blood) the day before. This tweet that was sent later that night was frequently referred to by users:
Semangat kepahlawanan tetap ada dalam saya dan akan terus berjuang!
— Mohd Najib Tun Razak (@NajibRazak) June 4, 2015
2. The PM not showing up at the event
3. The police not allowing Tun Dr. Mahathir to finish speaking
With 67% of the sample being Bahasa Malaysia speakers and 30.55% of them choosing to voice their disapproval directly to the PM, the message here is that young Bahasa Malaysia speakers are not afraid to criticise the PM openly in large numbers. The high degree of profanity and personal insults imply they no longer respect the PM.
8. Scale of Importance on Twitter
8.1 Comparison to other topics
We collected 61,236 tweets from 26,868 users on June 5th. When compared to other topics that we have tracked this year, the number of users tweeting about #Nothing2Hide in one day was greater than the number of users tweeting about 1MDB in the 1st quarter of this year (21,979 users).
The chart below illustrates how #Nothing2Hide compares with other topics this year. Keep in mind that this is a new topic compared to the others:
8.2 The scale of conversation
This network graph shows how Twitter users tweeting about #Nothing2Hide and @NajibRazak from June 5th – June 8th were connected. This includes all users on Twitter limited to those who retweeted or had conversations with each other. This helps visualise the scale of the conversation.
Each user is represented by a node (circle) that is coloured based on the number of their tweets that were retweeted and the number of tweets sent to them. The more attention they receive, the larger the node. Any node that retweets another node or tweets to another node is connected.
Nodes are positioned based on their connections to other nodes – strong connections pull them closer. Large nodes are considered influential within the network. We have coloured the nodes based on a scale of blue (least influential) to green; yellow; orange; red; and purple (most influential).
Due to the scale of the graph, we can only show names from the top 245 most influential users as seen below:
There are 36,685 users with 72,388 connections within the unfiltered graph. The most popular users were:
- @najibrazak
- @hafizhamidun
- @capricetv
- @501awani
- @malaysiakini
- @syafique
- @jack_vladimir
- @blogserius
- @themmailonline
- @thekhayalan15
- @adrianlimcheeen
- @suara_generasi
- @sumishanaidu
- @drmahyuddin
- @fahmimaharudin
- @putrareformasi
- @_amranfanz
- @aniqufakhrul
- @khairunnaim5
- @nst_online
- @tundrmahathir
- @faizfadzil
- @dilaraden
- @liy
- @wordsmanifest
9. Popular Content
The following tweets are among the most popularly shared tweets / images on this topic.
For now, Tun is the WINNER
#Nothing2Hide
— Hafiz Hamidun (@hafizhamidun) June 5, 2015
You say there's #Nothing2Hide but why are you hiding?
— Anna Khayalan (@thekhayalan15) June 5, 2015
Polis and thief
One two jaga
PM lari
Tun M ada
#Nothing2Hide
#CubaanAmranJadiPakSamad
— Amran Fans (@_AmranFanz) June 5, 2015
Kronologi #Nothing2Hide
1. Najib umum dialog bersama NGO
2. Tun M datang
3. KEBAB tweet pembatalan dialog
4. Najib hilang
5. Tun dihalau
— Adrian (@adrianlimcheeen) June 5, 2015
#Nothing2Hide Tun M datang @NajibRazak hide.
— Bisikan Konspirasi (@jack_vladamir) June 5, 2015
If you're our PM, please act like one. If you're a warrior, pls stand like one #Nothing2Hide
— Dr. Mahyuddin (@DrMahyuddin) June 5, 2015
i guess Najib have #something2hide because he's cancelling the #Nothing2Hide talk. Then don't ask us why we were losing faith in your rule
— qwerty (@asnawimdnor) June 5, 2015
Well well well….if @KBAB51 can't handle security for an event with @NajibRazak, what good is he?
— Marina Mahathir (@netraKL) June 5, 2015
Darah Pahlawan:
Hang Tuah
Hang Jebat
Hang Lekiu
Hang Kasturi
Hang Lekir
Hang Pi Mana?
#Nothing2Hide
#Everything2Hide
— Anas Alam Faizli (@aafaizli) June 6, 2015
You know what? @NajibRazak has become a joke. Sumpah aku dah tahap kesian dah kat dia nie. Tatau nak cakap apa. #Nothing2Hide
— Blondie (@SpongeBobCatz) June 5, 2015
How dare you disrespect Tun M by stopping him from speaking? Shame on you @PDRMsia #nothing2hide pic.twitter.com/QcfGv1mboy
— CapriceOfficial (@CapriceTV) June 5, 2015
Basically this morning
#Nothing2Hide #DarahPahlawan pic.twitter.com/Csrg34fDR9
— BlogSerius (@Blogserius) June 5, 2015
Berharap @NajibRazak dapat baca ni. Berharap sangat. Luahan seorang rakyat biasa. #NajibLetakJawatan #Nothing2Hide pic.twitter.com/xNstNhCQnP
— Abe mie (@FahmiMaharudin) June 6, 2015
Pihak polis arah Tun M berhenti berucap @501Awani #Nothing2Hide pic.twitter.com/6WFZQNTrKC
— syaf (@syafique) June 5, 2015
"Semangat kepahlawanan tetap ada dalam saya dan akan terus berjuang!" – @NajibRazak pic.twitter.com/o3qh7l9ltK
— Faiz (@faizfadzil) June 5, 2015
Siapa tak minat sains? It’s not too late! 1MDB vs. major scientific achievements #nothing2hide #plsRT pic.twitter.com/wBvRL7JNe8
— Liyana Dizzy (@liy) June 5, 2015
ni adalah ucapan yang sempat Tun Mahathir ucapkan dalam masa kurang 10 minit dalam forum #Nothing2Hide semalam. pic.twitter.com/JaqIKFCNm8
— أشرف (@theasyrafzabani) June 6, 2015
10. Location of users
Based on geo-tagged tweets, we are able to determine where users often tweet from. This is indicative of where they spend most of their time e.g. work-place, university, residence.
Blue markers = Positive; Red markers = Negative; Yellow markers = Neutral
10.1 West Malaysia
10.2 East Malaysia
11. References
[1] (2015, June 4) #Nothing2Hide: SukaGuam Produces Trailer To Promote NGOs Dialogue With Najib. Malaysian Digest. Retrieved from http://www.malaysiandigest.com/frontpage/29-4-tile/556443-nothing2hide-sukaguam-produces-trailer-to-promote-ngos-dialogue-with-najib.html[2] https://twitter.com/Suara_generasi/status/606419547210457088[3] https://twitter.com/KBAB51/status/606624920508862465[4] https://twitter.com/sumishanaidu/status/606641744394883072[5] https://twitter.com/hooliganatwork/status/606649988123271169[6] Najib Razak (2015, June 5) Dialog Dengan Badan-Badan Bukan Kerajaan. NajibRazak.com. Retrieved from http://najibrazak.com/bm/blog/dialog-dengan-badan-badan-bukan-kerajaan/