Apparently Twitter is good for more than just telling the world in 140 characters or less what it is you had for lunch. The microblogging site has become a useful tool in what seems to be the world’s largest civil disobedience case in Canada.
Canadian Twitter users defied a ban on posting federal election results before polls had closed, setting themselves up to receive a pretty fine. Not even flinching at the thought of it, political vigilantes didn’t seem threatened by the 1938 law barring the “premature transmission” of election results.
The ban applied to the sharing of election results in any electoral district to the public in another electoral district. This affected not only public websites and national broadcasters, but also social media such as Twitter and Facebook (News - Alert).
Just 45 minutes into the transmission blackout, Ottawa-based analyst Mark Blevis reported that more than 140 election results-related tweets had already been published. And by the end of the three-hour blackout period, more than 4,800 tweets had been posted using the #tweettheresults hashtag.
By 8 p.m. Eastern Time the “real-time election” was in full swing online. In fact, #tweettheresults generated so much activity in a three-hour period that it was not only the top trending topic in the country, but the most-tweeted topic worldwide, besting even Osama bin Laden.
Vancouver-based social media consultants Alexandra Samuel and Darren Barefoot started a website aggregating tweets that published results early – but they pulled back at the last minute on Monday, fearing the publicity the site had garnered could land them in court.
Regardless, the people still tweeted on.
Bernard Keane (News 
- Alert), a political correspondent for crikey.au in Canberra, Australia, compares Canada’s “premature transmissions” law to a rule prohibiting electronic media such as radio and TV broadcasters from publishing anything election-related in the final days before a vote.
“This was so ridiculous. And journalists resisted by reading out the newspapers on radio, which was sort of an automatic breach of the law,” he said. “It became so ridiculous, politicians eventually removed it.”
Tweeters weren’t the only ones breaking the law.
The CBC inadvertently fell afoul of the election rules on Monday evening by displaying results for about five minutes.
TV Hosts Wendy Mesley and Peter Mansbridge began sharing results from Atlantic Canada at 9 p.m. ET, going through a handful of ridings and even featuring a short interview with one of the successful candidates before the CBC Newsworld Network shut down. In place of the coverage came a “Sorry, we’re experiencing technical difficulties’ message. Please stay tuned.”
But when CBC came back on the air, the results were still there. The broadcaster cut away a second time. Regular programming soon followed.
CBC spokesman Jeff Keay blamed the mix-up on a “a garden-variety technical glitch.”
It is up to Parliament to determine whether the law will remain in effect given the age of communication. Elections Canada has no power to change it, as it is merely and administrative body.
Elections Canada has said they will enforce the law based on complaints.
Michelle Amodio is a TMCnet contributor. She has helped promote companies and groups in all industries, from technology to banking to professional roller derby. She holds a bachelor's degree in Writing from Endicott College and currently works in marketing, journalism, and public relations as a freelancer.
Edited by Jennifer Russell
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