Facebook as a political weapon: Information in social networks

Malaysia's 13th General Election: Political Communication and Public Agenda in Social Media

“…If one uses social media networks correctly, it could have a positive impact or influence on the relationship between political parties and the public (Crompton, 2008;Wills & Reeves, 2007;Zittel, 2007). According to a monitoring website, socialbaker.com, currently there are about 13.6 million Facebook users (out of a population of 28.3 million) in Malaysia.…”

The use of Facebook for political commentary in South Africa

“…Thus, the appeal of using a social network site such as Facebook for political purposes by political parties is that it has an existing large user base and it can be used to target sections of the population efficiently, while using little resources in order to create a sense of personalised communication with constituents (Crompton, 2008;Wills and Reeves, 2007). Since regular usage patterns are integrated into the daily media practices of its users (Cassidy, 2006;Ellison et al, 2007), with South African users currently averaging at 700 min a month (Chatterbox Digital, 2012), it can provide campaigns and political parties with the ability to organise and communicate with supporters in an efficient manner, while allowing members of the public (members of the group) to voice their opinions and gather independently (Anstead and Chadwick, 2008;Westling, 2007;Wills and Reeves, 2007). Furthermore, having a presence on Facebook provides individuals with the sense that the politician can be reached and that direct communication with the politician is possible.…”

“…Such changes have brought new opportunities for citizens to engage, discuss and debate in the political realm. If used correctly, social media networks could have a positive impact, or influence, on the relationship between political parties and the public (Crompton, 2008;Wills and Reeves, 2007;Zittel, 2007). This paper considers the nature of political commentary and participation on two South African political parties' sites on one of the more popular online social networks, Facebook, by examining the following four theoretical assumptions:…”

Data Protection in a Profiled World

“…In Wills and Reeves (2009), for example, the authors problematize some of the heuristics used to probabilistically infer information from the attributes of a profile's network vicinity. For example, although inferencing attributes through social networks may return mathematically accurate results, the assumptions such inferences are based on are socially questionable.…”