Recently, during the Vancouver municipal election, some candidates were trying to make a big deal out of the fact that their comments are being removed from their opponents’ social media pages. They claim that this is contrary to the ideals of openness and transparency in Government.
Full Disclosure: I was on contract with Vision Vancouver as their Data Coordinator at the time.
I don’t want to get into the weeds of the specifics in regards to this particular election. However, I wanted to explore this issue in the broader context of campaigning on social media in general.
At time, I was running for VP of the Liberal party of Canada in BC. For my campaign, I had a blog, a Facebook page and a Twitter account. On my blog, I choose to moderate comments before they can be posted. I have been going around in my head as to whether or not I would delete a post on my blog from an opponent.
And I am pretty sure I would.
I have put a fair amount of work into building a following (however small) on Social Media. This represents a great deal of effort on my part. I don’t see why I would open up the results of all that work to my opponent to attack me, or even just to get their message out.
Brought to its natural real life conclusion, those who say they have some sort of right to campaign to my followers should be perfectly happy to have me show up at their campaign office, or Town Hall, and start passing out my flyers and promotional material. Of course they wouldn’t actually allow me to do this. But somehow they think that they should be free to do the online equivalent?
Ultimately, my social media pages are mine, there for the purpose of my campaign. I don’t see why I would allow anyone to post anything on those sites and pages that would hurt my chances of winning. That isn’t being dishonest or opaque, it is simply being realistic.
I’m interested in your opinions on this matter. Please feel free to comment. I will say, in advance, that anyone taking this opportunity to bash Vision Vancouver or our campaign will not have their comments approved.