Twitter Disrupts German Election

The social networking site, which can mobilize activists for political causes, can also demotivate potential voters by releasing information prematurely:

The information was relayed on Twitter an hour and a half before polls closed in the states of Saarland, Saxony and Thuringia on Sunday. It was reportedly similar to the official exit poll results broadcast on public broadcasters ARD and ZDF at 6 pm German time.

“This is damaging democracy,” Wolfgang Bosbach, of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), told the Cologne daily Koelner Stadt-Anzeiger. “There is the danger that election results could be falsified. Therefore, these exit polls must be strictly monitored.”

Joerg van Essen of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) described the Tweets as "unacceptable."

Not sure what can be done to avoid this, other than to follow the Iranian example and shut down all Internet and cell phone communications. 

Patrick Beuth, writing in the Franfurter Rundschau, recognizes that technology and social networking are a fact of life in a free and open society.  The only thing we can do ask people to act responsibly: 

Der Deal mit den Demoskopen beruht auf dem Prinzip "Information gegen Vertraulichkeit". Wie kann es bis zur Schließung der Wahllokale gewahrt werden? Die Antwort ist: gar nicht. Ein einziger Wichtigtuer genügt, und schon ist die Nachricht in der Welt. Geschwindigkeit und Vernetzung, die großen Stärken eines Kanals wie Twitter, torpedieren hier auch althergebrachte (Standes-)Tugenden. (The deal with pollsters is based on the principle of "information in exchange for confidentiality".  How can this be preserved until a polling place is closed?  The answer is, it can't be. All it takes is a single busybody and the news is all over the world. Speed and networking, the major strengths of a service like Twitter, here torpedo traditional journalistic values.)

Comments

[Jan]

I think it's more important to avoid such influencing of potential voters than to enable politicians to prepare their reactions to the results. They should simply keep those numbers (more) secret until election is over.