Politicians and social networks

ninty9er

Do people use these. I find more and more requests to become the friend/supporter of politicians across all parties coming in in recent weeks.

I'm not even sure it's the actual politician behind the page a lot of the time which makes the whole thing a bit pointless. Anyone else?

monellia

I see it as fairly harmless, unless they're misrepresented on the page. Not necessarily by other people, but by themselves. Keep in mind that you can be whoever you want to be on the internet and politicians are not exempt from this!

The_Minister

I have a Senator on my Face...




....book account.

I know it's really them.

mikemac

I don't want my local TD having a bebo account.
It's childish and just what they think younger people will want.

A weekly blog site that shows what they are doing in the area is good. So while people might think they are on holidays they are actually working hard and attending meetings most nights. It's in their interest to show this but how do control muppet comments left by viewers?

I've never used facebook so not sure what that is

ninty9er

I'm not convinced that it's a good idea to have a bebo, but then again not convinced it's a bad idea either. Young people are more likely to use Bebo and students are more likely to use Facebook, does anyone use myspace anymore?

There's umpteen Willie O'Dea and Enda Kenny Bebos for example, but if there's one for a TD (or more recently a lot of councillors) that's screened for comments and provides info on what to do in various situations, then it could be useful. But would a politician be wrong in thinking that young people want them to have a Bebo?

I've checked out how the Facebook one works and you can link RSS feeds to a politician's page which is a good idea methinks.

I just wonder whether or not the people who actually use it (considering the global reach of the web) to leave comments and discussion boards, would even be eligible to vote for "X" not to mind actually doing it in the polling booth.

Sorry for the short OP, my battery was going dead.

Liam Byrne

I don't care whether they have them or not, but I can't see me clicking "accept" to a friend invite from any of the ones I know of - there's none that have my support at the moment, and politicians are probably banking on the "look how many friends I have" bull**** that goes on on these networks.

If they do some work for the area and have roughly the same principles as me, then fair enough, I might vote for them, but I still wouldn't include them as "friends" - I don't have €50K to spare, for a start.

I did get one of these invites - it was from an SF member - and unfortunately MySpace or Bebo or whatever it is doesn't have an "Are you joking ?" option, so unfortunately it had to just be "Decline".....was tempted to send them a questionnaire / poll as to where they stood on certain issues, but decided their membership spoke for itself on at least a few that I'm incompatible with.

And before any SF members start flaming me for that, (a) it's a fact, and (b) if it was Willie O'Dea or Bertie or BCF, they have plenty of issues on which I'm incompatible too.

So if the 2 or 3 politicians in the Dail that seem to actually have morals and stand for something and stand up for the good of the country come "adding" me, I'll think about it. But most of them can go shag off - I'm not helping inflate their egos by helping them pretend they're popular.

ninty9er

Liam Byrne wrote: »

I did get one of these invites - it was from an SF member - and unfortunately MySpace or Bebo or whatever it is doesn't have an "Are you joking ?" option, so unfortunately it had to just be "Decline"

:pac::pac: