Facebook 2011: Elections in Troubled Times

In 2011 doomsday forecasts about the end of Facebook were spread parallel with news about the growing number of Facebook users. And whereas the world was (and still is) in panicky expectation of 21 December 2012, the day the Mayan Calendar predicts it will end, Facebook was threatened with extinction even an year earlier, on 5 November 2011. Would the absence of the social network have corrected the Mayan prophecy through a premature apocalypse caused by universal grief over its demise? For better or for worse, we will never know as the plan of hacktivist group Anonymous to attack and destroy Facebook on 5 November 2011 remained limited to its threats posted on YouTube.

Facebook has survived. While the social network is fighting for its billionth user, it is likely to keep its leading position among the most visited websites in 2012 as well. It seems that neither the risk of misuse of personal data nor the findings that Facebook destroys every third marriage and causes depression are capable of stopping its continuous growth.

Troubled Times

In 2011 Facebook kept one of its main functions – offering a platform for citizen action against negative social phenomena and practices. As in previous years, the idea about organizing several Bulgarian protests was spread via the social network. In 2011 Bulgarian Facebook users targeted mainly the mobile phone operators, shale gas, and high fuel prices. A Facebook group called ‘We are against a Bulgarian Chernobyl – shale gas extraction’ [bg] attracted more than 52 000 members and became the most popular citizen initiative on this website in 2011. The year began with organized protests against the questionable practices of Bulgaria’s three mobile phone operators and continued with protest marches against the rising fuel prices. The public reaction after the murder in the village of Katunitsa (a nineteen-year-old ethnic Bulgarian was run over and killed by a minibus driven by Roma close to a local Roma boss known as Tsar Kiro; this led to riots in Katunitsa and nationwide anti-Roma protests) was also reflected on Facebook. Public anger poured out in two forms: racist calls against the Roma and discontent with the biases of the media as expressed in the views of their journalists on the subject. Thus, for example, top bTV journalist Mirolyuba Benatova was accused of biased coverage of events in the subsequent ethnic-based riots. A group against Benatova was formed on Facebook, attracting almost 12 000 members, and her Facebook profile was reported to the administrators as harmful or offensive and therefore deleted. And although we are aware of the meaning of the saying, ‘a nine days’ wonder’, some initiatives on the social networking site are a reflection of long-term public attitudes.

The many participants in the different protests in the streets of Sofia in 2011 proved Facebook’s role in organizing such events. If at the end of 2010 we were still asking ourselves whether Facebook activity translates into real-life action at all, last year the majority of citizen initiatives initiated online were realized in practice.

Elections 2011

Last year also saw the long-expected double elections, for president and for local government. In these elections, too, the candidates used different ways to communicate with voters and paid special attention to the new media. We even saw a new trend: if in the 2009 parliamentary elections those who campaigned actively on the social networking sites were mostly members of the public, in the 2011 elections almost all candidates conducted well-coordinated online campaigns, parallel with those in the traditional media.

In all media the initiatives of the candidates for local government were eclipsed by the presidential campaign. The big battle between the contenders for the presidency was also fought on Facebook. Those who campaigned most actively online were Ivaylo Kalfin (BSP), who had only 2000 virtual supporters by election day, Meglena Kuneva (independent), with more than 12 000 fans on Facebook, Rosen Plevneliev (GERB), with more than 4000, and Svetoslav Vitkov (independent), who was also the leader in the virtual ‘vote’, winning 15 000 votes.

The results of the elections were not proportionate to the activity in the candidates’ online campaign. The most popular candidate on Facebook, musician Svetoslav Vitkov, came in a very poor eighth in the real-life elections, having won only 54 125 votes. Meglena Kuneva, who had the second largest Facebook following, finished third, while Ivaylo Kalfin and the ruling party’s candidate, Rosen Plevneliev, made it to the second round of the elections even though they had significantly fewer Facebook supporters. All candidates communicated actively with the electorate on the social networking site. After those elections we can conclude that Facebook is certainly not the major factor for a given candidate’s success in the election race. However, we must certainly note the importance of Facebook as one of the main channels of communication in election campaigns. This is a conclusion we had no reason to make after the 2009 elections.

Everyone on Facebook

The ever growing access to Facebook in 2011 made many users choose precisely this channel of communication: both with close friends and with like-minded supporters of particular initiatives. For many of its users, Facebook proved to be the main source of information. Surprisingly or not, Bulgarian politicians actively used this platform in their 2011 election campaigns.

The mass success of Facebook naturally provoked the discontent of ill-wishers, which grew into a campaign against the social networking site. The definitions of Facebook in the Bulgarian public sphere vary from the highly conspiratorial ‘giant spying machine’ to the far less pretentious and mundane ‘gossip mill’. Yet no matter how we regard Facebook, the truth is that in 2011 it asserted itself as a factor in social and political life in Bulgaria.