Mar. 16, 2011 - Issue #804 : P.S. I love You
Holding politicians to account in an Internet age
You don't get to 1284 followers without making a few enemies
Of all the things that might have been on MLA Raj Sherman's to-do list this week, "read up on 'Godwin’s Law'" was clearly not among them. The law coined by American attorney and author Mike Godwin at the dawn of the Internet age states, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
Sherman, whose forced retraction of an intemperate tweet in which he referred to his former party and the Alberta government as the "PC Gestapo" garnered him almost as much media attention on Monday morning as his ongoing efforts to improve the health-care system, has surely learned this lesson now.
With Twitter, Facebook and various other online forums providing citizens and elected office holders alike the opportunity to engage in unfiltered, instant communication, the potential for improving citizen engagement and access to politicians is obvious and endless. But as evidenced by Sherman's experience, social media is a double-edged sword that our elected representatives need to wield very carefully.
"The pitfalls of engaging in social media for those holding elected office are far greater than the potential," says David Climenhaga, particularly in the case of Twitter. The author of the albertadiary.ca political blog and communications director with the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees suggests that while Barack Obama proved the organizational benefits that might be realized—instant communication and mobilization of younger audiences— the great temptation to use a medium like Twitter when one is annoyed can be more dangerous than beneficial for politicians in the long run. He recalls the hot water MLA Doug Elniski landed himself in 2009 over questionable remarks he tweeted during the Gay Pride Parade. That and a subsequent blog post landed the Edmonton Calder MLA in hot water with the Premier. Elniski appears to have learned his lesson, with his most recent tweets involving nothing more controversial than his trips to the dentist and the fact that Calder has not one, but two, Humpty’s locations.
Alberta NDP leader Brian Mason also found himself in an online sparring match after Dave Cournoyer, author of the political blog daveberta.ca, made what some felt was a snide comment on Twitter regarding Mason's new blog. The ensuing back and forth made for an amusing Sunday afternoon for observers, but there were some who felt Mason's response was a bit heavy handed. The Edmonton-Norwood MLA acknowledges he has some learning to do but makes no apologies for getting into social media debates with voters. In fact, he plans to do more of it, describing all politics as a "battle of ideas."
"I'm not going to go on Twitter or Facebook and be neutral,” says Mason. "I'm going to go there and fight for the ideas that I and the NDP believe in."
He adds that being a politician shouldn’t stop him from challenging statements and ideas that he believes need to be challenged, but acknowledges he's learning quickly how important it is to think twice before hitting the send button.
City councillor Don Iveson, who boasts that he invented the #yegcc hashtag on Twitter, considers himself fortunate to have come to Web 2.0 earlier than some of his counterparts, allowing him to witness some fairly poignant examples of how not to use the Internet to engage in civic discourse.
"I made sure to learn from those examples and have been able to use social media as a positive outreach tool," he explains when asked how he has avoided engaging in public spats with voters or having to make embarrassing retractions. More important than the medium, Iveson stresses that the bar for behaviour is high for public office holders. "Like it or not, we're held to a higher standard," he says, adding that he believes his very role demands a basic level of respect be afforded to citizens. "I have to be thoughtful any time I am out in public and that includes when I’m using social media."
These may very well be words of wisdom for politicians new to using social media. If heeded, perhaps we'll see fewer of them having to say they're sorry. V
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