Twitter Is Using the Democracy Sausage As The Symbol Of The Australian Federal Election

Twitter Is Using the Democracy Sausage As The Symbol Of The Australian Federal Election

Social media platform Twitter wants you to get amongst Australian politics with a democracy sausage emoji, which it’ll be running on Auspol hashtags from today.

What was once a pretty lighthearted way of celebrating Australian politics (AKA: the intergenerational tradition of picking up a snag, some sauce and onion on a piece of bread) has now become a symbol of our Federal Election, and Twitter is all for it. Back in 2019, Instagram did a pretty similar thing, giving users democracy sausage stickers to use when they went to the polls.

From today, Twitter will be pasting the democracy sausage emoji beside popular Australian politics hashtags in the lead up to the 2022 Australian Federal Election (which we now know will take place on May 21). This includes:

  • #DemocracySausage
  • #SausageSizzle
  • #AusVotes2022
  • #AusVotes22
  • #AusVotes
  • #Auspol

Unfortunately, the embedded tweet doesn’t show the sausage emoji.

Accompanying Twitter’s democracy sausage announcement was some interesting stats about the behaviours of young voters, given, as Twitter’s Australia and New Zealand public policy director Kara Hinesley explained, more than one-third of young Australians will get the majority of their political information from social media during the election campaign.

According to the research, which was conducted in partnership with YouGov, 63 per cent of young Australians (18 to 24 years of age) reckon the online behaviour of politicians affects how they vote, with 47 per cent of the total population thinking so as well. 80 per cent of young people say that they would be turned off voting for a politician that spread misinformation or disinformation online.

“This is why Twitter is encouraging first-time voters going to the polls to share their #MyFirstDemocracySausage experience on Twitter and showcase their political power,” Hinesley said.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), AKA the commission that conducts the Federal Election every year and has been roasting misinformation-spreaders on Twitter recently, is all for Twitter’s approach to the Australian election.

“We’re thrilled to see this drive for young Australians to register to vote, share their #MyFirstDemocracySausage experience, and support Twitter’s broader efforts to elevate credible and reliable information on their service during this year’s Federal Election,” says Evan Ekin-Smyth, the digital engagement director of the AEC.

You can enrol to vote now at www.aec.gov.au/enrol.


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