The Facebook Factor in Canadian Politics

It was in connection with Billie’s company, ARC or Artists Raising Consciousness that this author watched and made notes on the digital developments on Facebook as they occurred. You see Jordan’s group wasn’t the first, or the best place on Facebook to protest the new legislation. But his group became the largest when early news media reports fingered it because he was a kid, and not an institution, charity or NGO. Jordan is a authentic 17yr old with hundreds of Facebook friends directly affected by the laws  his page was genuine and his growth was organic, at first.

The Growth Metrics of Jordan’s Facebook Protest Group

It’s a fact, Jordan’s group had 200 members within the first three hours of its existence, and this really is a testament to the strength of his own Facebook profile and online reputation. If Jordan himself was unpopular he wouldn’t have had the cache to attract early associates, and this is where the other institutions and youth groups failed.

14 500 members on Day 2; Global News, CTV and CBC began to reported the existence of Jordan’s page, among other pages.

65 000 members on Day 3 all the personal blogs, political commentators and discussion forums began to link directly to Jordan’s Facebook group.

95 000 members on Day 4, even though all major media platforms were done reporting the group, a very interesting phenomenon happened; Facebook users in Ontario saw their friends join via their status updates and this propelled steady growth for the next week and a half .

150,000 members had joined two weeks later as the storm broke in Queen’s Park. The Facebook collective had officially affected change when Dalton McGuinty bowed to pressure on December 8th 2008, and very publicly lifted the passenger restrictions from the proposed legislation.

The Rise of Digital Government

The entire scenario reminds this author of a 1994 book called, Digital Government: Technology and Public Sector Performance by Darrell M. West of Princeton University. On page 25 of his landmark publication Mr. West states “our goal is to make the entire federal government both less expensive and more efficient, and to change the culture of our national bureaucracy away from complacency and entitlement toward initiative and empowerment. We intend to redesign, to reinvent, to reinvigorate the entire national government.

Darrell West wrote his book long before social media existed, but the rise of digital government could be witnessed in the events in the Ontario Legislature this week.

Not only is the Internet increasingly the focus of policy advocacy, but it also serves as the platform to enable such advocacy. – Michael Geist, Internet matures as tool for political advocacy, The Toronto Star 02 June 08.