That’s the finding of the Hansard Society research paper MPs on Facebook:
while over half (51%) of Liberal Democrat MPs have a presence on Facebook, the figures for Labour and the Conservatives are 15% and 9%, respectively. … On a per-party basis, Liberal Democrats MPs appeared more likely to see Facebook as a communications tool (69%) but were the least likely to have personal or inactive pages. Conservative MPs were as likely to have a campaigning page as a personal one (24%) but were still most likely to be using Facebook as a communications tool (41%). Labour were the party
…
Tom Brake has now managed to get in contact with Facebook who have advised him that his account was automatically suspended when their system detected an unusually large amount of traffic to and from his account.
Clearly, a social network originally set up for networking amongst university peers needs to evolve to cope with new types of users and their networks, balancing communications amongst large groups with safeguards against spam.
Facebook say they are working hard to get Tom’s account back up.
Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington, has had his Facebook account disabled just hours after he used …
Today’s Times reports on the growth of Twitter and Facebook among councillors, noting in particular the work of one Lib Dem councillor/blogger, Daisy Benson:
Daisy Benson, a Liberal Democrat member of Reading Borough Council, used Facebook to encourage young people to take part in a scrutiny review of the standard of private rented housing in the area. “I used it because the issue we were looking at particularly affected students and young people and it’s a good way to reach them.”
Benson set up a Facebook group and listed the consultation questions. The group attracted more than 80 members. Among
…
Lib Dem Voice readers are familiar with our weekly BBC1 Question Time open threads – your chance to sound off about the programme while it’s on-air, or to indulge in some post-match analysis of the panellists’ performances, all from the comfort of your sofa.
Well, tonight, we’re ringing the changes – not too much you’ll be pleased/disappointed to hear. But we’re going to be trialling a Facebook Live Stream. If, like me until a few hours ago, you’ve absolutely no idea what that is, this article may explain:
With the Live Stream Box on your website, users log in
…
Ah, another day, another daily view. Suddenly in the blink of an eye, polling day is a whole week behind us. Lives are being lived, new councillors swearing the oath of office and new groups working out how to work with each other in future.
And unlike m’colleague Alix who could trumpet an end to expenses stories, sadly today they’re back with a vengeance, as the Telegraph digs into Shahid Malik.
But never fear – “the recession has ended” ! The Independent is so confident of its analysis that it feels the need to put …
June’s edition of Total Politics carries the second part of a two part series from me about how people in politics can get the most out of Facebook.
In the May edition of Total Politics, I went through some of the steps to get started with using Facebook, including getting your privacy settings right and pulling in content from elsewhere. But once you’ve done that, what next?
Facebook groups are a good place to start. You can hunt out groups that cover issues or organisations in your patch and also set up one or more groups to compliment your own …
So I’m sitting in front of my laptop desperately trying to think of some new way to campaign that will complement shoving pieces of paper through letter boxes and isn’t just having yet another website.
I’m quite convinced, by the way, that only a limited percentage of even the best leaflets get read on their way to the recycling bin – and many local party websites only get visited by activists anyway.
And then my mind goes back to the lecture I attended at City University by the bloke who did Obama’s e-campaigning – and suddenly the brains …
From the Sunday Mirror:
A Tory activist has been expelled from the party for posting a picture of himself with a Hitler moustache on Facebook … And beside it, in the “My Favourite Quotes” section, he allegedly made racist and sexist comments, including one saying: “I don’t hate everyone, I just hate women …
A spokesman said: “These comments are disgusting. He has no place in the party. He is being expelled immediately.”
Daniel O’Docherty had been chair of the Birmingham University Conservatives until a few weeks ago.
The Eurovision Song Contest was last night but, Eurovoting and Eurovisual fans, you can still get your entertainment fix. (You’ll have to bring your own music though):
From The Register:
The European Parliament is treading bravely into the world of social networking in order to get the kids involved in the exciting world of European politics.
Bureaucrats have created profiles on popular social sites including Facebook, MySpace and photo sharing site Flickr. There will also be ad-word campaigns and banner ads on MySpace.
Elections run from 4 to 7 June, and the primary purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of those dates as well as improving young people’s understanding of the European Parliament and the work of MEPs.
A YouTube channel has also been created.
The YouTube channel includes a short series of videos called “At the polling station” – these major on the speed and ease of voting, rather than the purpose or politics of the European Parliament. Short and almost non-verbal, they seem to be aiming for viral appeal. The “screaming” one is a bit much, though.
On the other hand, anything featuring both pedals and polling stations gets my vote:
May’s edition of Total Politics carries part one of a two part series from me about how people in politics can get the most out of Facebook.
Liberal Democrat Voice has covered many aspects of Facebook in the past, including tips for keeping on top of your notifications and Steve Webb’s innovative Facebook surgery, but what are the basics you should get right? And if you think I’ve missed out something crucial, the comments thread awaits…
Finding out what’s going on, communicating and getting feedback are essential parts of the job of any politician or would-be politician. Facebook offers great opportunities for all three, but it can also suck up huge amounts of time. So how can a busy person ensure they get the most from both Facebook and their precious time? A good starting point is to ensure you don’t fall into the trap which others have before.
If you flick through the media stories featuring the words “politician”, “Facebook” and “gaffe”, you will find that nearly all involve something which in a pre-Facebook world would have been kept private, but was put on Facebook and then leaked. Like it or not, you must assume that anything you put on Facebook will end up being seen by journalists and opponents. Act accordingly. Keep your genuinely private life away from your political Facebook presence.
Whilst this is good advice for anyone in politics, it can cause problems for someone who has been using Facebook long before they thought of standing for public office. Must they really axe their private use of Facebook and remove past private information before going in to politics?
Guildford Lib Dem Councillor and software developer Chris Ward explains why the ‘like’ button may could help win elections.
In 2007 I ran for local council. I vividly recall conveying to the campaigns meeting this incredible new craze called Facebook. Much like many online innovations, Lib Dem activists tend to proceed with caution. Today, many of those people are on Facebook themselves, justifying my initial worship for the networking site.
Back then I made a bit of a mistake. I believed that Facebook was enough in itself to get a substantial number of votes. I know …
Launching our spoof Statebook website and campaign this bank holiday, we knew we’d be tapping into a strong and growing public unease about digital privacy.
Data leaks, massive government IT projects and ‘data retention’ are creating a sense that things in this area are going in the wrong direction. Perhaps people aren’t aware of all the details – but they know there’s a problem.
Statebook tries to bridge that gap by illustrating the wealth of information the government already holds on you, and how the government wants to get its hands on even more if it can – popularising the …
One of the most common reasons I hear people give for not joining a social network site such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn is, “I know it’s useful, but where would I find the time to keep up with what’s happening?”
A typical way of tackling, at least in party, this dilemma is to go through carefully tweaking your email alert settings on each service, so that you get emails for the information you want to know about – but nothing more. Then you can set up some rules and a folder in your email program to file these alerts conveniently together in one place, away from the immediate urgent items in the inbox.
It’s what I’ve been doing, but it can take a bit of time to create and refine the setup. And for many people saying “set up an email rule” is rather off-putting. It may not be nearly as hard as they think, but whatever the reason, if they’ve been put off then that’s that.
Enter then, stage left, NutshellMail.
A couple of weeks ago, LDV highlighted the case of Sean Aspey, a Lib Dem councillor in Bridgend, who suddenly found himself caught in the headlights of the press after pictures showing him dressed as a Nazi for a fancy dress party (with an ‘Allo ‘Allo theme) were posted first on Facebook, then published in newspapers. Local Lib Dem party chiefs suspended him temporarily while an internal inquiry into the affair was carried out.
As I commented at the time:
There appears to have been an absurd over-reaction to this case which, sad to say, qualifies for categorisation under that ultra-cliché
…
Today the Government, in the person of Harriet Harman, announced it would legislate retrospectively to terminate Sir Fred Goodwin’s £650,000 a year pension, five months after Labour business minister Lord Myners agreed to the deal. I don’t always agree with the Telegraph’s Jeff Randall, but I think he’s bang-on-the-money with this judgement, written even before Ms Harman’s latest desperate attempts to extricate Labour from the hole into which they’ve dug themselves:
Once we set off down the road to annulling pension contracts, who knows where the journey will end. Nobody, to my knowledge, is claiming that Sir Fred had
…
More praise for Tom Brake, who has been using Facebook as one of his channels for communicating with constituents:
Emily Bell writes in the Guardian:
“I’m envious of my colleague who can ask her MP, Tom Brakes , to look into matters of irritation at Carshalton station. He does it, and registers that he has on his Facebook status. She feels she has a personal relationship with her MP, something a thousand doorstepping exercises would never achieve.”
Mark posted recently about MPs’ uptake of various internet tools, and the fact that there are many to choose from.
Tom Brake’s use of …
Inside Facebook has the story about changes due in the next few weeks:
With the Pages redesign, business Pages will now look much more like Facebook profile pages. According to information provided to advertisers, Facebook is moving Pages to a “Wall and tabs” design:
* The Wall tab, containing all the latest updates and Wall posts, will become front and center.
* Most static information will live on an “Info” tab, and most Photos will now live on a “Photos” tab.
* Most custom content and application boxes will be moved to a “Boxes” tab, though some narrow boxes can remain on the “Wall”
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You know a craze is over when the Sunday supplements start featuring them – from today’s Sunday Times, ’25 random things’ confession craze sweeps the internet:
Millions of people are revealing 25 ‘random’ and often embarrassing things about themselves in the latest phenomenon to sweep the internet … The first of 25 random things is: “The weirdest thing I have ever eaten is fried bees in China.”
Clegg, you might think, sounds like a fearless action man. Study his list more closely, however, and he comes across as too slick by half. He oils his eco-credentials with his second
…
On Sunday, LDV published* Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg’s contribution to the Facebook meme afflicting sweeping the nation, 25 random things, in which ‘tagged’ Facebook users list, erm, 25 random things about themselves. Here, anonymised, are a selection of the comments that Nick’s Facebook friends have posted in response:
>> Brilliant stuff – good to see a politician keeping on trend with the meme surveys 🙂
>> Careful Nick…you’re coming across as too interesting. people might not believe you’re a real politician
>> #25 made me laugh!
>> Wow, that’s great! It’s nice to see politicians who are so down to earth.
>> Even
…
Steve Webb, Liberal Democrat MP for Northavon, held a “drop in surgery” with a difference this morning – on social networking website Facebook.
He’d advertised the time in advance, to his 3,867 Facebook friends: “Steve will be online on Facebook Chat tomorrow (Thursday) between 11 and 11.30am. Log on and chat if you want to raise anything with me.”
This morning around 200 of them – a mixture of constituents, party members and others – were online for the chat session. Steve likened the experience to “one of those plate-spinning acts that you see on variety shows on the TV”. (Fortunately, he types fast!)
Shortly afterwards, I spoke to Steve, who declared the experiment a success. I asked him why he chose Facebook’s live chat facility.
Praise for Tom Brake and how he uses Facebook to engage with his constituents in Carshalton and Wallington:
Tom Brake, LibDem MP for Carshalton and Wallington, uses Facebook. Not especially as an ordinary member, in terms of ordinary (mundane) status reports or poking or that sort of thing, but as an MP … This is a perfect example: Tom updates his Facebook friends on the weather reports and is thanked by five for doing so. It is part of the job of the modern day MP, but it also builds up a link between him and constituents, perhaps earns a degree
…
As Facebook devotees will know, there’s currently a rather virulent meme afflicting all users, called self-explanatorily enough, 25 random things:
Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
So far LDV’s Facebook page has escaped being tagged … but why let that stop us? So here goes with 25 random things about the Lib Dems:
1. The …
Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:
When it comes to social media, Facebook is pretty much it as far as MPs go. For example, of the Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet members, 100% have a public email address, 90% have a website (the exceptions being in the House of Lords), 72% are on Facebook, 7% blog (and for another 7% there are party blogs covering their portfolio, even though they do not blog personally), and 3% are on Twitter. None have an active MySpace or Bebo presence (though there’s one that is now defunct).
Similar patterns – heavy email use, slightly lighter website coverage, many Facebook profiles, fewer bloggers and Twitter bringing up the rear – occur across all the main political parties.
This is not just a matter of new services taking time to catch on; blogging, after all, has been around for much longer than Facebook and the first politicians on Facebook came years after the first blogging politicians.
So what is it about Facebook that makes it attractive to MPs?
The Conservative Party has spent £500,000 on a campaign to launch supporters’ groups on four social networking websites: Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and iVillage. However, research by the Financial Times has found that the iVillage group had only drawn one new member.
Tim Montgomerie, editor of the Conservativehome website said, ”The party has very little to show for more than £1m of expenditure on internet-related projects over the last year. Eye-catching initiatives have always been favoured over using the internet for long-term relationship building.”
As the Financial Times reports:
All the main parties are suffering from declining membership. Mr Cameron appears willing to commit
…
Cross-posted from The Wardman Wire:
Last week, Orange launched their report “The Future of Politics”. In the words of the accompanying news release, the reports shows “how British politicians can learn from Barack Obama and embrace technology to bring public involvement back into UK democracy.”
The launch press release picked out five main themes from the report:
But what the report doesn’t do is really examine the question of why these opportunities are not being taken. Somewhat cheekily, Liberal Democrat MP Steve Webb pointed out how the launch itself was a meeting with four talking heads at the front, followed by questions. As Steve put it, if all these technology opportunities the report talks about are so good, available and effective, why was the launch meeting itself so old-fashioned?
None of this is about technology that isn’t already widely available at reasonable cost. So is it just the case that the political process is just stuffed full of Luddites who don’t get it? Or is it the case that the technology zealots are failing to understand the structural issues restricting better use of technology? Practical limitations in terms of cost and effort which perhaps also explain why the launch meeting itself was so decidedly old-fashioned?
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has emailed party members today to publicise Saturday’s National Climate Change March in London (email reproduced below).
Hashtag fans like me particularly liked the PS: Nick is encouraging participants to use the hashtag #climatemarch on Twitter and Flickr. As far as I know, Nick Clegg is the first British politician to promote the use of hashtags.
Whilst it’s a powerful thing for thousands of people to join together in one place and show their solidarity for a cause, this is a way for individuals to give their own report on events. Tweets bearing the …
Another email drops into the inbox of The Voice from A Liberal Democrat Organiser Who Wishes To Remain Anonymous: “Another submission for you good chaps. I thought I’d actually try to be vaguely useful this time.” You can read the first post by Lib Dem Riso Monkey’s diary here; and the second post here.
“We need to think about implementing our e-campaign,” said one of our leading activists rather breathlessly. “It’s very important to capture the youth vote with a comprehensive online presence.”
It’s another Campaign Committee, and we’ve got to the stage where people are repeating phrases they’ve …
Questions about Nick Clegg’s various internet presences regularly come my way, so here’s a handy quick list of the key resources:
…
Total number of Facebook supporters for Obama and McCain: 2,602,269
Total number of MySpace supporters for Obama and McCain: 1,024,128
(Figures from TechPresident.com, as of 31 October, via Weekly NetPulse email newsletter)
A sad little message arrives in the Voice inbox from the Facebook House of Commons
Ray Khan sent a message to the members of The Facebook House of Commons.
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Subject: Candidates SaughtWe currently have no candidates from following parties:
Conservative
Plaid cymru
SNP
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