Vision Vancouver’s @PeterLadner Twatting
So, here’s the story as I understand it:
Someone at Vision Vancouver decided that, in an attempt to be ‘hip’ and ‘edgy’ or whatever, they should register a Twitter account. The account they registered (now deleted) was @PeterLadner - the name of a Vancouver mayoral candidate. I’m a fan of light-hearted political parody in the style of @FakeSarahPalin, but what VV did was different - they essentially posted ‘parody’ using his name on Twitter.
How is this different? Well, for one, there was no clear indication that this was, in fact, parody. It was posted with his name, as though written by him, and there were no overt indications that this was, in fact, a fake - like, say, calling the account @FakePeterLadner. Anyone googling Peter Ladner’s name, perhaps to find information on the candidates in this election, would find Vision Vancouver’s words coming out of Peter Ladner’s mouth, out of context, with no indication that this is just a cheap political stunt.
Vision Vancouver, apparently in response to negative publicity from the Twitter and blogger communities (including posts by Gillian Shaw and Jenn Lowther), and an article on the Vancouver Sun website, has deleted the account, and recreated one at @PeterLadnerFake (which apparently was then deleted as well). Lesson learned?
Well, I wasn’t going to vote in the election because I’m new to the area and don’t understand the issues. Now I’ve learned more about Vision Vancouver, and I’ve decided that I don’t really want them around. Not just because of this issue, mind you, but others - like refusing to pay transit fares, even if he did eventually pay up. Seriously, if you don’t like the rules, then fight to change them, but don’t refuse to play ball because you can’t make your own rules up as you go. I’ll admit that I’ve run two zones on a one-zone pass (sometimes accidentally, sometimes not) but if I were caught, I’d pay the fine.
So, maybe I will vote after all. I haven’t decided for sure, and I’m not necessarily going to vote for Peter Ladner, but it looks like Robertson and his campaign are going about things the wrong way, and I couldn’t really vote for them after this kind of thing.
Oh well.
1 Comment to Vision Vancouver’s @PeterLadner Twatting
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- Daniel Udey
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- @wilshipley Most of the people I know at Apple are crazy smart, passionate, and really cool people. Glad to hear he's no different.
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- @raincoaster They're espousing reciprocation, a critical part of any relationship. Seems rational to me. ;)
I am in total agreement with you. Totally not a cool move on the Robertson campaign. At best this is petty mudslinging and at worst libelous since they were posing as Peter Ladner without a disclaimer. Check out my post on it here http://www.invokemedia.com/how-not-to-use-twitter-pettiness-in-the-vancouver-civic-election/