Moldovan’s Revolutionise the Use of Social Media

Following recent political and public un-rest in the country, Moldovan activists and demonstrators protesting alleged vote rigging by the countries Communist party have been making full use of current Social Media to both co-ordinate and publicise the nature of their demonstrations and the feelings towards the issues and events taking place.

Twitter, Live Journal and Facebook are among the range of social networking websites being used to communicate and co-ordinate demonstrator activities. Regular Tweets being posted to #pman, a hashtag filter abbreviation for Piaţa Marii Adunări Naţionale – the Romanian name for the capital city’s biggest square. Protesters are Tweeting everything from general messages of support and political outbursts, to images of the recently seized president’s office, which was later retaken by riot police.

Cloudapp is also being put to use by the technically savvy activists to aggregate Twitter-streams, blog posts, videos and images relating to the events onto one web page.

Police officers in ransacked Parliament hall at Chisinau - Image by Avdeev Max

However, there are many, such as Evgeny Morozov, who have decried the role of social media technology in the events. Worrying that more will be made of the use of technology than the events themselves, Morozov asks “Will we remember the events that are now unfolding in Chisinau not by the color of the flags but by the social-networking technology used?”.

With little coverage actually being attributed to the internal political events that are taking place, it is not entirely impossible to believe this will be the case. The riots and protests taking place in Moldova, a poor, largely ethnic Romanian country situated between Romania and the Ukraine, are the result of allegations of vote rigging in recent elections by the Communist party and of economic stagnation which has led to increased impact of the global recession.

With local authorities requesting some Moldovan ISP’s restrict internet connection with the outside world in an attempt to restrict the flow of damning reports such as “a grenade thrown by the police has torn apart one of the protester’s leg” getting out, it is certain that, at the very least, these events will end up yet another example, in a growing list, of the uses of modern social media in generating “live news”, created by the public.