Twitter is free, fast and tragic. And if it wasn’t powerful in facilitating the fall of dictators or mindless riots, governments wouldn’t consider using its censorship option. 39 of our 57 Lib Dem MPs use it and our party president Tim Farron assures me he can help us to improve on that. But should they bother with any new technology that isn’t proven to add value? Retweeting ICM polls from an iPhone won’t improve our electoral fortunes (but keep trying anyway). If our MPs want to replace paper with iPads perhaps they should buy their own and truly embrace CONNECT.

We can’t waste precious campaign time, every second invested should increase our returns at the ballot box. The more tangible gift to our residents in the form of a 4 foot pile of literature provides us with greater reassurance than online banter, assuming something more positive happened on the way to the round filing cabinet recycling box.

You can use social media to add value, through following or leading – to engage people as Julian Huppert does. He tests opinion through tweeting polls to his audience, such as “what do you want me to ask at PMQs?” and it delivers spot on results. That third-party testimonial is a ready-made Focus vox-pop.

Councillor Jamie Matthews represents students and aptly chooses to challenge poor internet service provision on their behalf over Twitter. Councillor Victor Chamberlain also regularly uses it to report back on his ward activities. We’re all probably familiar with “20 is plenty” speed reduction campaigns, yet there’s something motivating about watching the action unfold, leaving a digital campaign trail, from council chamber motion to action photo. This helps to spread best-practice activity among other campaigners.

We repeatedly ask “what’s new?” of our friends, family and now, followers. Irrelevant, old information just isn’t worth sharing. We merge communicating with the people closest to us with less deserving online strangers. Like-minded individuals are drawn to one another through statements, photos and web links.

Loosely-affiliated groups form around shared opinions, oppose other groups and do constant battle. Some win at the expense of another, opinions become exhausted, or expire to give birth to others. Groups disband and regroup, gaining some people formerly on the opposing side of another issue.

Whether using it as a blunt broadcast instrument, to shape debate through persuasion or gather intelligence, you alone are not going to make the country a better place through it. But your individual participation may help build the team to get us there.

• Electoral timetable for May’s elections: I’ve recently updated my May 2012 election timetable post with extra details
• Liberal Democrat peers on Twitter: having commented adversely in the past on the lack of communications from many of them, I’ve been hunting out how many are using Twitter. You can find them all in this Twitter list (which is a little more comprehensive than the other lists I’ve come across). Let me know if you spot anyone I’ve missed.
• Liberal Democrat achievements: over on Facebook, I’ve started up a daily posting of a Liberal Democrat achievement in government.

* Mark Pack is Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and writes a monthly newsletter about the Liberal Democrats.

That this House notes the Third Report from the Procedure Committee on Use of hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber and committees, HC 889; and resolves that hand-held devices (not laptops) may be used in the Chamber, provided that they are silent, and used in a way that does not impair decorum, that Members making speeches in the Chamber or in committee may refer to electronic devices in place of paper speaking notes and that electronic devices, including laptops, may be used silently in committee meetings, including select committees.

Not all the moves in Parliament yesterday however were in favour of embracing technology, for there was also this exchange:

Mr Denis MacShane (Rotherham) (Lab): On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Along with other right hon. and hon. Members, I received today a letter from the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling), saying that in future all his communications with us would be by e-mail. I do not challenge the sincerity of his desire not to spend an evening signing letters, or to be quicker or save a bit of paper, but I really do think it is a worry. When we send letters on to constituents, they should not be PDFs or bits of e-mails; they should be letters. They represent an important relationship between the state and the citizen. I am not sure, either, of the legal authority of letters that have not been physically signed. I do not want to add work for Ministers—believe me, I know what it is like—but will you look at the matter with your colleagues, perhaps including the Leader of the House, who is kindly in his seat, and work out whether it is a good initiative for any Minister to take?

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle):That was discussed at Speaker’s conference this morning, and Mr Speaker is certainly uneasy about it. Concern was expressed by the other Deputy Speakers, as well. I can say that Mr Speaker will investigate the matter.

The 63 (plus two tellers) who voted against were:

Aldous, Peter; Amess, Mr David; Bebb, Guto; Bell, Sir Stuart; Brady, Mr Graham; Brine, Mr Steve; Buckland, Mr Robert; Burns, Conor; Cairns, Alun; Campbell, Mr Alan; Clark, Katy; Corbyn, Jeremy; Davidson, Mr Ian; Davies, Philip; de Bois, Nick; Docherty, Thomas; Dunne, Mr Philip; Eustice, George; Fallon, Michael; Francois, rh Mr Mark; Freeman, George; Fuller, Richard; Goodman, Helen; Goodwill, Mr Robert; Gray, Mr James; Hamilton, Mr David; Hart, Simon; Henderson, Gordon; Hendrick, Mark; Hinds, Damian; Hollobone, Mr Philip; Hughes, rh Simon; Jackson, Mr Stewart; Jones, Mr Kevan; Jones, Mr Marcus; Kaufman, rh Sir Gerald; Kawczynski, Daniel; Lewis, Dr Julian; Llwyd, rh Mr Elfyn; Main, Mrs Ann;e Maynard, Paul; Pincher, Christopher; Reevell, Simon; Rifkind, rh Sir Malcolm; Rosindell, Andrew; Ruffley, Mr David; Russell, Bob; Selous, Andrew; Sharma, Alok; Sheridan, Jim; Skinner, Mr Dennis; Soubry, Anna; Stewart, Iain; Swales, Ian; Swayne, rh Mr Desmond; Syms, Mr Robert; Turner, Mr Andrew; Tyrie, Mr Andrew; Watkinson, Angela; Whittingdale, Mr John; Williamson, Gavin; Wilson, Sammy; Wood, Mike; Tellers for the Ayes: Mr Charles Walker and Mr Roger Gale.

Kelvin Hopkins was also recorded as voting both for and against.

@DPMoffice will be “Tweeting the official business of Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.” It will be run separately from his existing party Twitter account, @nick_clegg, which will still cover Nick’s Liberal Democrat and Government-related activities.

See also the Deputy Prime Minister’s website, his (Cabinet Office) Flickr gallery and the Deputy Prime Minister’s YouTube channel.

The message said:

From someone else fine but I do not want my fingerprints on the story. C

So what was this “story”? – we are all now wondering.

Think about it.

Chris Huhne had obviously been having a private text exchange with (that ubiquitous Huhne Aunt Sally) “a staff member” (if you believe what Huhne told the BBC’s excellent Peter Henley; the Independent speculates that the person on the other end of the exchange was the Sunday Telegraph’s Peter Hennessy).

So, the other exchangee was not a novice to the world of media stories, one can reasonably assume.

I think it is then safe to take the next step of logic and assume that there was a plausible assumption on the part of both exchangees that Huhne’s name might be published within the story as a named source. Otherwise, Huhne would not have thought that it was necessary to say that he did not want his “fingerprints” on the story.

So, taking that line of logic, the story concerned was probably quite inconsequential, bearing in mind that someone reasonably experienced in press matters (i.e. the exchangee other than Huhne) was reasonably expected (by Huhne) to think that there was potential for Huhne’s name to appear in the story. Otherwise Huhne wouldn’t have bothered to state the opposite.

Unless, of course, the story was so explosive that Huhne needed to state, for the absolute avoidance of doubt, that his name shouldn’t be on the story. In that case, we can look out for a monumentally earth-shattering story coming out in the next 48 hours which would have made Huhne’s enemies look very bad, were it not for the fact that everyone will now know that this is the Huhne “fingerprintless” (not) story.

This “#tweetfailgate” story would not have taken wing so much, had it not fed into the general assumption that Chris Huhne practises media manipulative skullduggery behind the scenes.

However, as I said when I supported Chris Huhne for the LibDem leadership (a position of which I am still very proud), thank goodness that the LibDems have a few people, like Chris Huhne, who know their way around the dark arts of the media.

We’d be pretty lost if we were all a bunch of naïve idealists without the hard-nosed nous which people like Chris Huhne bring to the party.

Paul Walter blogs at Liberal Burblings

“The discussions looked at how law enforcement and the networks can build on the existing relationships and co-operation to prevent the networks being used for criminal behaviour”.

Good.

Of course, it should never have come to this in the first place. It seems lunacy just a few short months after David Cameron could say that that freedom of expression should be respected “in Tahrir Square as much as Trafalgar Square” that he could think it appropriate that he should be advocating the complete opposite (and end up being both mocked and praised for his efforts by a Chinese news agency).

But it’s another great example of why it’s so important that we play an active role in government.

If the Tories had won a majority in May 2010, moves like this would have continued unabated, and the Louise Mensch’s of this world would be given free reign to pursue policies just like these (ironically Louise chose to pursue her campaign on… Twitter. Oh, the irony).

It’s because we are acting as a brake, a conscience, a voice of reason, that we can stop this sort of extreme, knee jerk pursuit of a right wing agenda, and introduce fairer, more considered and (whisper it gently) liberal policies.

The Tories don’t like it, as this piece in The Evening Standard reveals. But it is what the country voted for, and so thank goodness for the wisdom of the masses.

The same masses who, thanks to Lib Dem intervention, will be free to express their opinion on Social Media without interruption.

I would like to take this opportunity apologise for making derogatory comments during the BBC Question Time programme on the 27th January especially those relating to Chuka Umunna MP. I made a lot of comments that were insulting that night and I regret that.

In respect of one particular tweet, no offense was meant but I absolutely acknowledge that it was recklessly worded and liable to an interpretation that was never intended. For that I would like to offer my sincere apologies to Mr Umunna and to anyone else for any offence caused.

I take the values of the Liberal Democrats very seriously and as someone of mixed heritage myself, I can fully understand why it has upset many people. For that I offer an unreserved apology.

The list looks not at number of followers, but at the volume of tweets each MP has sent out. Heading the list is Labour’s Kerry McCarthy with well over 27,000 tweets. Cambridge’s Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert — elected to Parliament just last year — comes in at number six, having sent over 10,000 tweets, and now with over 4,000 followers.

My Co-Editor Mark Pack has compiled a public list of all tweeting Lib Dem MPs — you can follow their aggregated Twitter feed by clicking here.

The report notes that tweeting MPs fall into two categories: ‘obsessives’, who tweet all the time; and ‘lurkers’ who tweet only occasionally. (In fact that binary definition is pretty much true of everyone on Twitter.) While Dr Huppert is located firmly in the first camp, former party leader Charles Kennedy is an example of the latter, managing eight tweets so far this year.

And indeed it’s one of Mr Kennedy’s former staffers — Olly Kendall — who is quoted in the paper:

Last night, Olly Kendall, director of Westminster Public Affairs, said tweeting helped MPs ‘humanise’ themselves. ‘Some of the unguarded moments of honesty reveal a side to them that most people don’t usually see – humorous, self-deprecating and down-right ordinary.’ Mr Kendall added: ‘The savvy MPs use Twitter not just to propagate party spin but to engage in an honest and open dialogue and to let constituents get to know them as people as well as for their political views.’

Prize for the stupidest comment goes to Tory MP Brian Binley, labelled ‘a committed non-tweeter’, who says:

‘I just cannot see the point. I’ve never had a constituent come to me and say, “Why aren’t you blogging or tweeting?”’

I wonder how many constituents have asked Mr Binley to stick political leaflets through their door? I suspect few if any; but I imagine he does it anyway (at least at election times) because it’s an important way of keeping in touch. That he appears not to want to communicate with constituents or the public via social media says more abut Mr Binley than it does about Twitter.

The Reading Chronicle reports:

The Lib Dems’ South Central office announced today that Reading borough councillor, Warren Swaine, who represents Katesgrove ward, will have to undergo diversity training if he wants to be a spokesman for the group in the next two years.

The decision comes more than five months after Cllr Swaine was suspended for putting a message on the social networking website while Labour’s mixed-race Streatham MP, Chuka Umunna, appeared on BBC One’s Question Time.

Cllr Swaine tweeted: “I’m waiting for the Labour guy to claim ‘is it because I is black?’ as a defense [sic] for being a muppet.”

Read the full story at the Reading Chronicle.

During the parliamentary debate on the BSkyB bid there was one such moment. At 6.25pm Dr Phillip Lee stood up and spoke to a now mostly empty chamber. This was a shame, because what he had to say was, in my view, extremely relevant and highly important. (Hansard)

He spoke on the fact that a lot, if not the vast majority, of the news people are getting today comes from not the mainstream media, the newspapers, magazines and TV, but from the “new media”, the social networks, sites like LibDem Voice and search engines.

I certainly get most of my news online and if I want more detail on an issue than my usual sites provide I turn to a search engine.

Companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft/Bing, and Google are the new arbiters of our news. They have it within their power to shape what we see, to shape our views on a subject, indeed to drive a specific agenda and we might never even notice it’s happening.

It could be deliberate, calculated, or it could simply be accidental. If the top search results all returned sites with a conservative outlook then what you read may well influence your views, or it might be liberal, or maybe just those sites that are favourable to the current agenda.

The algorithms the search engines use to generate their results are commercially secret and how would we know that they haven’t been tweaked so that news sites favourable to the engine’s owner don’t get weighted higher than those unfavourable? How often when searching does on go past the first page of results?

A recent example, something that might have been missed by many in the UK, is a court case Google lost in Belgium. A number of Belgian papers decided they didn’t like Google linking to their websites without permission or paying compensation and sued under copyright legislation. Then the law of unintended consequences kicked in. The papers didn’t want Google showing article extracts or photos as links, but Google interpreted links in its fullest sense and removed all the sites from its search results entirely, since the sites don’t appear they can’t be linked to, and hence Google doesn’t have to pay the fines. The papers of course suddenly aren’t happy that they got what they wanted. (Yes, the irony of that link was deliberate.)

Given my own views on copyright, I can’t help but laugh at those papers getting their comeuppance. Yet this is exactly the same problem we are now in crisis over, the close relationship between those needing exposure and those providing it. As far as Google users are concerned, those Belgian newspapers no longer exist. What if instead of newspapers, it was a political party?

With over 90% of the searches from the UK going through Google, that’s a lot of power concentrated in one place. We don’t want to end up in a situation where we finally remove the need/ability of politicians to suck up to the likes of News International to make sure they get favourable exposure only to shift this to companies like Google. Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and all the others.

He calls new news outlets, such as the newly-launched UK version news and comment website Huffington Post, “a welcome breath of fresh air” at a time when public confidence in the media establishment is being rocked by phone-hacking allegations.

Here’s an excerpt:

The hacking scandal throws up an array of insights. But one in particular stands out to liberals: information is power. It always has been. When elites deploy secretive and opaque practices, it is nearly always to protect their own position. And when you reveal those secrets, you rock the foundations of the powers that be. Just think back to Wikileaks for that.

Or think of the Arab Spring. It’s well-understood that Twitter and other social networking sites are playing an unprecedented role in galvanising support for popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East. So, yes, he who holds the secret holds the key. But those who can spread the word can break the door down.

And it’s how we treat information that divides societies across the world today. There are closed societies, where dictators and propagandists reign supreme; where citizens are discouraged from looking out at the world; and the rest of the world is prevented from looking in.

And there are open societies, where information is dispersed; where people are given the facts to make their own choices; and the state is properly transparent so that the people it serves can hold it to account.

The UK falls of the right side of that divide – an open and democratic society. But this week’s headlines remind us we mustn’t take that for granted. We must continuously work to ensure that those who wield power do so in plain view. And we must make it possible for the powerless to speak out against vested interests.

In the media, that means a full, judge-led public inquiry to get to the bottom of the hacking allegations, as well as a further inquiry into the culture, ethics and practices of the British press. And we need to replace our feeble Press Complaints Commission with a body that is truly independent, and willing and able to take on powerful media interests when needed.

Nick also cites the Open Public Services White Paper, published yesterday, which will make available unprecedented levels of data in a useful form:

Parents, for example, will be able to see how successful local schools are in helping children of different abilities achieve better. People will be able to judge nearby health services by reading up on the experiences of other patients. You’ll have access to a map that shows you how well crime is combated on your street. And, where information isn’t already available on how well local services are performing, people will have a new, legal right to request it.

Read the whole article at Huffington Post UK.

Despite a ban on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter, in an attempt to try and stifle the protests, the capital Minsk has seen huge anti-Lukashenka demonstrations. The response of the Belarusian Government has been appalling. Hundreds of peaceful protesters have been arrested, and journalists have witnessed protesters being beaten as part of a crackdown across the country.

The more recent examples of “clapping” protesters being arrested, and previous brutal oppression of those opposed to the regime by, for example, the arrest of opposition candidates following the election, really highlight the severity of the situation. The actions being taken by the Governments militia mean that the safety of young liberal protesters is at serious risk.

The treatment of protesters is of great concern. The highly regarded Presidential candidate, Andrei Sannikov was recently arrested, after being thuggishly attacked by members of the regime – causing critical wounds. It has become clear that his medical requirements are not being met, made evident by his lawyer being threatened with disbarment when raising the issue in court. Amnesty international are campaigning for his release along with that of many other political campaigners and journalists.

It has become easy in recent weeks to focus on the amazing events of the Arab Spring and their struggle for liberty. However there is a nation on Europe’s doorstep craving the same rights and freedoms we enjoy. Prisoners such as Sannikov have perhaps not been forgotten, but their struggles put on the back burner, within the current international climate. International efforts to free these prisoners and protect protesters from the regime have proved weak and ineffective. Despite open condemnation from the EU earlier this year, Lukashenka has begun to come down harder on political protesters. His authoritarian regime appears to be under the international radar. For political protesters, many of whom are young, it means they have no real protection.

However the international community has a real chance to make amends and protect the citizens of Belarus. The Belarusian economy has fallen into turmoil, with rising unemployment and a worthless currency. The regime wants a loan from the IMF of $8bn over the next 5 years. The IMF should allow this loan to go ahead. If certain conditions to allow greater economic freedoms in Belarus come with this loan then Lukashenka’s rule will be undermined. Greater geographical movement, in particular student visas will open up the country to the west.

The international community must put pressure on the IMF to include the release of certain political prisoners, such as Sannikov. Doing so would undermine the regime, and guarantee the safety of liberal campaigners across the country. The international community has an opportunity to rid the world of a brutal dictator – this should not be passed up.

One in six people in the world have no access to clean water. 2.5 billion are without clean sanitation and 1.5 million die every year from water contamination.

The report presented to the summit found that there are three main causes of water pollution: industry, agriculture and sewage. In developing countries 70% of industrial waste is dumped untreated into water. The most common source of water pollution, however, is faecal matter.

One of the Millennium Development Goals is to halve the number of people without access to clean water by 2015.

If, like the Defence Secretary Liam Fox, you think that the government should worry less about aid; if you think that the beginning and end of political priorities should be our own domestic self interest then these facts probably don’t interest you.

But for anyone who hates suffering and believes we should care about others then this situation demands urgent action.

The joint Assembly called for:

• more boreholes in villages and shanty towns with rising populations
• effective medical solutions, like chlorine tablets to combat epidemics including cholera, that are linked to polluted water
• EU and ACP countries should prevent industry, deforestation, mining, chemical production and extensive use of pesticides from affecting water quality – polluters should pay.

There is no way around a financial cost to the first two action points. They are good examples of how aid spending can do real good. The third bullet point requires us to place restrictions and costs on the activities of companies that are usually western, large and influential in our own countries as well as the developing world. Shareholders of a western mining company may well kick back if we support regulations that curtail how they pursue projects. But we should simply require that they observe the similar standards abroad as we would expect in our own country. A company dumping waste into the water supply here would be prosecuted. The same should happen in the developing world. We ask this not because we are against companies making profits but because the lives of children matter and more than justify a marginal curtailing of profit.

The EU has pledged 200 million euros (equivalent to less than 40 cents from each European citizen) for action on clean water by 2013. These funds will be used to develop clean water supply and sanitation and help establish strong water governance in the countries where these problems are most urgent. That kind of action should make us all proud to be Europeans.

There are of course numerous arguments that this kind of action serves our enlightened self-interest: spreading our influence, creating opportunities for some of our companies and so on. But you would have to have no soul to need those arguments to persuade you that saving lives of people who lack water was a good thing to do.

This issue, and the summit in particular, received no coverage in the mainstream UK media. In the last fortnight our airwaves have been filled with super-injunctions and Twitter, Ken Clarke’s statement that some rapes are more serious than others and the latest instalment on whether or not GPs will become commissioners of services. All those issues are important but it is disappointing that the issue of so many preventable deaths and action about it could not receive some attention.

There is the Jean-Jacques Rousseau tradition of political philosophy (“man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”) that holds that naturally we have what we need to live and it is the way we have constructed our societies that deprives some people of their basic needs. In relation to clean water, that must be right. Likewise the Judaeo-Christian religions hold that we have been provided by the world’s Creator with everything we need to live and if we lack a resource like water it is because men have deprived each other of it.

An important debate for the twenty-first century is whether the idea of fundamental inalienable rights applies only to legal and political rights (free speech, fair trials, elected legislatures, etc) or whether it should also apply to some social and economic values such as a right to education or to basic medical care. It seems to me that clean drinking water should be regarded as an absolute entitlement of every human being.

Antony Hook is Vice-Chair of the Liberal Democrat European Group.

Yet in a relatively low turnout (I say “relatively” because, once again, turnout was much higher than many of the auto-pilot electoral doom-mongers in the media predicted) election it’s older people’s votes who are vital.

There was a film made early on which featured an 86 year old Second World War veteran – Ralph’s story. Not only did the concept of show-casing individual people’s stories in this way fade away during the campaign, so too did making the pitch in a way designed to appeal to just the sort of older voter, Home Counties living, normally Tory but quite liked Tony Blair and Charles Kennedy at times, who was always going to vote in large numbers. Instead, as the campaign moved on it seemed to become more and more focused on appealing to the sorts of people who were activists on the campaign rather than to the voters who mattered.

Certainly that was the impact of much of the online buzz, as I saw at first hand from traffic statistics to both this site and my own blog. Several posts about the AV referendum generated large numbers of tweets, but comparatively little traffic came from the tweets – because it was not people passing on a story to new, wider audiences but rather much more a case of the same group of people circulating information within itself. That’s not inevitable with Twitter – posts on both sites on other topics that generate comparable numbers of tweets get far higher levels of traffic as a result. This was one of those cases were critics of so-called slacktivism have a point or two.

The lesson? You need to talk to a wider audience. Talking to activists is important – vitally important – but not enough in itself. Easy to say, somewhat harder to always manage in practice.

Sometimes that’s a matter of choice of topics – how often do you mention restoring the pensions link with earnings compared to Lords reform (a score on which many party leaflets score better than some TV interviews)? Sometimes it’s a matter of choice of language – hence my dislike of the insider jargon “social mobility” which is just the sort of phrase that some use all the time but barely registers with the huge mass of voters.

Either way, communicating better amongst ourselves is important – but that is not a substitute for talking about the issues that matter to voters, in jargon-free ways that showcase our liberal beliefs.

Hundreds of people are already using Lib Dem Voice’s new Facebook app to do just this. It’s a great way of building up a buzz around our campaigning – and the more someone sees their friends have been campaigning, the more likely they are to join in.

You get a list of actions – select one and publish it to your newsfeed.

Some actions are of the simple “I have done” variety whilst others have the option to add a quantity, such as the number of leaflets.

There’s a tab for the “Yes! To Fairer Votes campaign” and another for your regular Lib Dem campaigning.

Find the app at http://apps.facebook.com/ldvcapp

There’s even the option of linking it to your Twitter account.

The app is still in Beta, so drop us a line at if you come across any technical glitches.

Thanks, and happy campaigning!

Cass Sunstein in particular made the case for that latter pessimistic view very forcefully in his Republic.com book and it’s a pattern you see often in, for example, choices over political blog readership where supporters of different parties particularly congregate on blogs that take similar lines.

Now, however, researchers have taken a close look at how news is shared on Twitter and come up with a rather more positive finding:

Indirect media exposure [i.e. people seeing stories shared by those they follow on Twitter] increases the diversity of political opinions seen by users: between 60-98% of the users who directly followed media sources with only a single political leaning (left, right, or center) are indirectly exposedto media sources with a different political leaning. In orderto reach this conclusion, we use public classification of news sources and infer the political preference of every audience member. One can only speculate about the effect of political diversity, because users do not necessarily read the complete Twitter timeline nor do they always prefer receiving diverse political opinions (Munson and Resnick 2010). Nonetheless our results show the power of social media, in that users are exposed to information they did not know they were interested in, serendipitously.

One of their other findings is that for all Twitter’s newness, the sources of information are mainly fairly traditional:

There is much about the media landscape in Twitter that is ‘old media’. Established media outlets retain the role of publishing news and stories without much interaction with readers. However, the features of the ‘new media’ age are reflected in the way journalists and audience engage in new communication patterns, communicating with each other directly, and tapping into breaking news.

Media Landscaipe in Twitter – A World of New Conventions and Political Diversity

This is a great way of building up a buzz around our campaigning – and the more someone sees their friends have been campaigning, the more likely they are to join in.

You get a list of actions – select one and publish it to your newsfeed.

Some actions are of the simple “I have done” variety whilst others have the option to add a quantity, such as the number of leaflets.

There’s a tab for the “Yes! To Fairer Votes campaign” and another for your regular Lib Dem campaigning.

Find the app at http://apps.facebook.com/ldvcapp

There’s even the option of linking it to your Twitter account.

The app is still in Beta, so drop us a line at if you come across any technical glitches.

Thanks, and happy campaigning!

On past form, many will gloss over the big differences between US and UK politics and the differences between a campaign headed up by the first non-white President and one aiming to make people buy your brand of shirts.

But as the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones, one of the more perceptive commentators on Obama online first time round, has pointed out, the early signs from Obama’s re-election campaign do give hints as to how the internet landscape is looking. In particular, he points out the relative prominence given to Facebook – the social network now where so many people spend so much time both in the US and in the UK.

Far less prominence is given to Twitter, though that may say more about Obama’s track-record of not making particularly good use of Twitter than it does about Twitter’s current potential. It certainly does not have the mass audience of Facebook, but for reaching journalists, opinion formers and potential activists it can do a great job.

Surprisingly, the Obama 2012 Facebook page makes little effort to promote the grand-daddy of online campaign tools – the one that is and forever will be only one year younger than myself and which Obama’s campaign concentrated on last time – namely email. No email sign up form is pushed at the reader.

Less surprisingly, that official Facebook page currently has fewer fans than the unofficial one – continuing a common trend of the unofficial being more popular than the official in online campaigning (something that was particularly notable with the Liberal Democrat online presences in the 2010 general election).

As Rory Cellan-Jones has also pointed out, the early launch of the Obama campaign illustrates how online audiences and teams of active volunteers usually take time to build up – it’s an environment for tortoises, not hares.

In that respect, at least, the Obama campaign is already giving a lesson that has wide applicability.

Paul Walter reports on speed cameras: “After an eight month switch-off, the 72 speed cameras in Oxfordshire will be switched back on at 9 o’clock this morning. The switch-off coincided with an increase in road deaths (12 to 18 comparing the six months with the previous same period), collisions and serious injuries”. That mirrors the evidence of research into speed cameras which (even after allowing for the issue of regression to the mean) finds they work to cut accidents, though the quality of the evidence is moderate at best rather than high.

Given the controversies at times over campaigns from the likes of 38 Degress, based on mass email list building and online petitions, a recent post about their Australian cousins, GetUp!, is of interest:

I saw a tweet on my Twitter feed from someone about a discounted pair of jeans. “They were $70 a pair. Just got some for $30.” It was followed by the hash-tag #ThanksGetUp. It made me giggle so I did a search by that tag and found dozens of tweets thanking GetUp! for everything from improving their remote control to organising Lionel Richie’s hit song ‘All Night Long’ to follow a Hall and Oates medley.

We’d be mistaken to make too much of a hashtag but this one sheds some interesting light on perceptions about online activism. The implication is that organisations such as GetUp! can be mocked for the claims it makes about its successes — even as it provides little evidence of them…

When GetUp! claims credit for the campaigns that are successful, is it drawing attention away from other organisations with different campaigning tactics…

Here lies the challenge for GetUp!: to sign something is easy, to stand up against the shock-jock inspired loony right is much harder. We need organisations like GetUp! to keep sharing information and inspiring aspiring activists.but can they transform 441,959 online signatories into active members?

Chances are you’ve noticed that as you start typing a search term into Google’s search box, it tries to guess what you are typing, suggesting several ways to complete what you are typing in. Those guesses are derived from Google’s huge data set of what people having been searching for online, so seeing what Google suggests also reveals what the most popular searches made by other people have been. The popularity of previous searches is not the only factor that goes into working out what Google will suggest to you, but it is by far the most important.

Try searching on the names of prominent politicians and one common pattern emerges – Google keeps on suggesting their name followed by Twitter as the search term you want to use.

That’s the case not only for the leaders of the three main parties, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband, but also for Caroline Lucas (the Green MP), Alex Salmond (Scotland’s first minister) and Nigel Farage of UKIP. It was only on searches for Plaid’s leader Ieuan Wyn Jones that Google did not prompt to suggest looking for Twitter in the tests I carried out.

The lesson of this? Trying to find political leaders on Twitter is one of the most common pieces of research about them that the public carry out. And if so many people are looking for you on Twitter, that is a good reason for being there and using it well.