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What the picker changes
  • Top topics digest — the cards score the selected period against the prior 4 weeks.
  • 12-week heatmap & outlet matrix — show the 12 weeks ending at the selected week (they slide back with the picker, they aren’t a fixed snapshot).
  • Per-topic volume / alias drift — same 12-week trailing window, anchored on the selected period.
  • Coverage gap quadrant — scores the selected period against the 12 weeks before it (not including it).
  • Anomaly cards — only show alerts the detector fired during the selected period. Quiet weeks legitimately show none.
What stays as-is
  • Outlet orientation strip / lean colours — context-only, drawn from the last 12 weeks of activity regardless.
  • Co-occurrence graph — recent-activity anchored, not picker-driven.
  • Source & topic profiles — all-time data for the topic; the picker doesn’t affect them.
Rolling 7 days is a sliding live window for “current vibes”; switch to Weekly to compare specific weeks side-by-side.
Weekly Rolling 7 days
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Week of 8 Jun 2026
→ This week
Topic · social

Taxpayer Cost Of Education

4 posts · 16 engagement · first seen 19 May 2026 · last seen 27 May 2026

Heather du Plessis-Allan reflects on the end of the fees-free university policy, arguing it was a financial misstep that failed to increase enrolment among disadvantaged students and was overly costly, while suggesting future spending should be directed toward trade training.

Stance breakdown

How the per-edge framings classify across 4 classified edges. Each framing is labelled by a small AI stance classifier; see the methodology page for details.

50%
50%
Critical 2 Mocking 2

Sentiment breakdown

Whole-post emotional valence across 4 classified posts that reference this topic. Distinct from stance: a post can be supportive of the topic and still negative in tone (an angry supporter) — the two together capture the texture short-form posts compress into very few words.

100%
Negative 4

Platform mix

Where the conversation is happening. Engagement is volume-weighted (likes + 2×shares + 3×replies); a small number of high-impact posts can outrank a high-volume but low-engagement platform.

  • youtube
    4 posts · 16 engagement
    16

Top posts by engagement

The most-engaged posts referencing this topic. Engagement is likes + 2×shares + 3×replies; the order matches the digest ranking on /social.