Emails leaked to the ABC show (www.abc.net.au) have revealed that John McTernan,chief media advisor to former Australia PM Julia Gillard, had a ‘Twitter army’ to attack rival political parties, journalists in a tactic to influence broader public opinion.
There was no mention of how many staffers were behind this ‘Twitter army’, but thousands of leaked email correspondence alluded to it having bombarded popular social media channels with trends, memes and tweets favourable to Gillard’s party.
This isn’t a new concept as closer to home, Malaysians are painfully aware that our top ministers and politicians have their own Twitter account with legions of minions manning it to make themselves more appealing to the younger generation. I thought it was genius of one to have his pic taken with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and tweeting the picture location as…Twitter HQ?!?
Generally, social media and blogs overall used to be the last bastion of hope the public could hold on to for some version of truth to happenings, political or not.
But some parties have already wisened up and are taking advantage of social media’s credibility for their own less-than-honourable motives.
IT BYTES BACK! says: Social media is well and flourishing. But it is becoming all too easy, for a group of single-minded social media users to use it in getting ahead dishonourably in public sentiment and political outcome.
