Mark Pack

Two days ago the Communists were declared victors in Moldova’s elections, triggering widespread unrest as people claimed the elections were rigged. Twitter has played a key role in organising the protests, as The Telegraph has reported:

Organisers used the social networking site Twitter to rally opposition to a Communist victory in legislative elections

At least 10,000 protesters gathered and police fired water cannon but were unable to stop the crowd from breaking into the buildings…

“The election was controlled by the Communists, they bought everyone off,” said Alexei, a student. “We will have no future under the Communists because they just think of themselves.”

Protesters carrying Moldovan and European flags and shouting anti-Communist slogans gathered outside the government building and made their way down Chisinau’s main boulevard to the president’s office.

The protesters and other observers have been using the Twitter hashtag #pman. Twitter is well suited to instant reporting during events such as this, as people can quickly post updates from the scene of protests, just using the mobile phone. The hashtag in turn means that anyone can easily find this news, even if the news is coming from people you don’t follow on Twitter.

For example, this Twitter search results page lists all the most recent tweets with #pman in them. This all gives a flow of rapid information from the ground that adds hugely to knowledge about what is going on though, as ever, one must be a little cautious about whether all the events reported are accurate. This piece of satire nearly caught me out for example:

timespunctro: Pravda, Moscow: Russian Tank Brigade got lost and ended up in Chisinau due to pilot error #pman

The reference to not enough broken windows in one of their previous tweets was the give away.