Politics And Facebook

So the election campaigns are going on. I know this from the sudden construction of roads, groups of people wearing vetis popping up all over the town, the drunk Vijaykanth video etc etc. I have never followed politics or know the politicians name except for Mr.Karunanidhi and Ms.Jayalalitha of course.

Most of the election campaigning ideas seem to be based on making a list of stuff they will give for free. But one thing that is puzzling me is, why there is no serious campaigning going on in Facebook. You can argue that only a small portion of people would be affected by this, but still every vote counts.

Now I searched in Facebook to see if Mr.Karunanidhi and Ms.Jayalalitha had profiles in FB :D I found only this for Mr.Karunanithi and these two for Ms.Jayalalitha (no idea if they are authentic :) ). Admittedly the latter has better profiles. But not a great deal of activity on the profiles.

Now there are a lot of ways you can use a profile in Facebook. Consider if Ms.Jayalalitha had posted "If the DMK government promises to give 24 hr electricity for the next term, why not give it right now?"*, imagine the no of people "liking" it or re sharing it. Imagine the effect it would have on the people like me who don't really have a lot of idea on who they should vote for. Especially on the ones who have stopped watching TV and look to Facebook for day to day news.

* - As quoted by Vishnu

They could have even followed the Cricket World Cup and wished Team India all success from their profiles. That would have a mighty positive effect on the people online! And if you see "Ms.Jayalalitha is attending the Support Anna Hazare meeting" on your Facebook wall, you would be impressed.

And the whole thing is not gonna take a lot of time. The parties can even hire a few people from colleges and get the Facebook campaigning going on. An internship for a err "real-time application" like this looks swell on your resume :D


P.S : There is a possibilty that online campaigning is going on a large scale and I am simple unaware of it :D

P.P.S : I hope one day I will see on my FB wall "Opposition Party |> Ruling Party : Pls amend the bill according to the mail we sent you, if you need us to agree on it" :)