Here are a few interesting news stories I’ve seen this morning that deal with the intersection of social networking and politics:
Tweet breaks Commons rarified rules?
House of Commons procedural wonks (Full disclosure: I’m one!) are amused and bemused by the Speaker being forced to rule on a possible violation via Twitter by a Conservative MP. Long standing practice (and precedent) is that you can not point out the absence of MPs in the House of Commons. The Bloc is arguing that’s exactly what Royal Galipeau did when he tweeted about the numbers of MPs in opposition seats. As the Citizen reports:
Bloc House Leader Pierre Paquette last week brought a point of order accusing Galipeau of breaching the rules.
“If a member is not allowed to make comments on the presence or absence of members in the House during speeches, this rule should also apply to new technology,” Paquette said. “In other words, when members are sitting in the House and therefore have access to privileged information, they should not be allowed to share that information outside the House.”
Facebook makes it easier to Like politicians
Facebook will be dropping the language, “Become a Fan”, and switching to a simple “Like” on Facebook Pages. This solves a vexing problem for journalists and political types who want more information about a candidate but are uncomfortable with the implication of “Becoming a Fan”. Explaining the move in a memo sent to US creative agencies, and leaked to Click Z news, Facebook suggests:
“We believe this will result in brands gaining more connections to pages since our research has shown that some users would be more comfortable with the term ‘Like’. The goal is to get the most user connections so that you can have ongoing conversations in the news feeds of as many users as possible.”
Liberals learn to use a video camera
The recently held Liberal policy conference–Canada 150–has received both accolades and criticisms from pundits, the media, and Liberals. Some are going so far as to suggest that it signaled the “birth of Twitter politics”. Suffice it to say, I don’t agree with a lot of the partisan spin coming out of Montreal. However, I do have to give credit to the Liberal online and technical team; they didn’t let anyone down. That includes people like me who would like to see more interactive and online participation in political events. They kept the live feed up; integrated questions from satellite locations, and used live blogging and Twitter to keep people in the loop (about 15,000 – 20,000 engaged Liberals). Moderation was a bit pro-Liberal, but hell, it was their policy conference (no matter how many times they used the word non-partisan in the lead up).
Now the real challenge for the Liberals will be to follow up. Was this a social media stunt or a new high bar for participatory tools? Only their next step will tell.
