A human Ciolos & an inhuman Reding: Two faces of the EU Commission's social communication

Dacian Ciolos, European Commissioner for the Agriculture, said the following about the value of his presence on Facebook today:

I gather that as from today you are already 500 people following my journey through the European agriculture. I want you to know that I feel your wish for interaction, I enjoy your presence here and it helps me tremendously to remain human, accessible and down-to-earth. Thank you.

I may add to these beautiful words that one should interpret this message as an involuntary but direct attack to Commissioner Reding and her cabinet who are actively working against the European Commission from entering into 21st century communication - disguised as bureaucratic newspeak in the form of a "solid cost-benefit analysis" and a "coherent communication strategy".

These are the inhuman words from the technocratic ages of controlled communication and closed-up public institutions.

As if one could simply measure "cost-benefit" of openness and transparency, reaching out to the public and communicating more humanely or as if the idea of social media wasn't the exact opposite of what were "coherent communication strategies" in the last century where journalists and big media dominated the intermediation between public institutions, citizens and other stakeholders.

But maybe it is a problem when a former journalist and a former legal adviser to a large media corporation are responsible for reforming the communication of the European Commission...

If the Commission was intelligent, it would see that people like Ciolos and so many other human voices from the Commission are not a threat to good communication but the greatest opportunity of opening up a bureaucratic organisation to the public, a public that the organisation is supposed to serve.

Ms Reding, do you hear that? I bet you don't, because it would mean you cared about it!


Picture: European Parliament / CC BY-NC-ND

Facebook or the question in what kind of world some MEPs live

A member of the European Parliament, Ms Nessa Childers, seems to think Facebook is a danger to the mental health of EU citizens, asking the Commission whether it will legislate on this threat to humanity.

With all due respect to you, Ms Childers, but there are questions that are so stupid that I ask myself why you waste your time and the time of the European Commission with that?

Proclaiming that Facebook is a danger to mental health because it makes you happy is like saying that meeting friends and family is dangerous because it makes you happy.

Digital communication is part of the real life of people in the 21st century and the question put forward by you shows how you have not understood these changes and the reality we citizens are actually living in.

Well done...!

(via @PlaceLux on Twitter)

Creating debates: The European Parliament on Facebook

There is nothing new in the fact that the European Parliament is on Facebook.

But it is worth noticing that the daily updates by the great people writing for y(EU) are regularly provoking debates. Some just produce 3 comments, other like the one from today regarding enlargment make it up to 80 comments within two hours (Update: 150 within five hours).

That is more than many euroblogs, including the most read posts get for whatever they write on. And here it is definitely an advantage of the institution having over 60,000 fans on Facebook so far.

But debates like the one today introduced with the following lines:

European Parliament regularly examines the candidates readiness for membership (see bit.ly/enlargeEU). But how ready are EU citizens? Do you feel that enlargement is a good thing? Who is welcome? - Some of your reactions here are to be quoted on the Parliament website this Thursday

not only produce quite controversial debates but also see very reflected individual comments worth thinking about:

"I think that now is a bad moment to discuss about the enlargement. The financial crisis make people more sensitive to changes, and many can see them as threats.

In general, the right political parties in Europe are growing due to the approach they make to nacionalists, extreme religious groups and similar. They are the ones receiving more money from the members and their agenda is often determined by economical issues.

I think now the difference between the citizens of all the EU are increased by the downturn and until things are more balanced again, the benefits of expansion will be hardly seen by anybody. And there is a lot of cleaning to do in the "old" members first, before trying to lecture the "new comers".

The corruption in Spain, Italy, UK, Greece, is sky-high and governments infiltrated with far-right members are not going to do much to improve things. And most definetly, countries that have major Human-Rights issues should not be allowed to pleed for the integration in the UE until their address their problems and proof they're working on a solution."

If there are any doubts about going web 2.0 for EU institutions, allowing debates to develop freely while having the power to set the agenda, these should be washed away by the success of what the EP does on Facebook!

Developing story: Violent demonstrations in Moldova after Sunday's elections

I just received a text message from Moldova telling me that a demonstration against Sunday's election results that started this morning at 10 am has turned violent. Stones are flying towards the Parliament and the Presidential Palace. Police reacts with water cannons.

Developing story... See also my previous post from yesterday on the election outcomes and these background information to understand why this (might have) happened.

Update (16:30): Spoke to somebody on the phone who is in Chisinau. I was told that President Voronin is meeting the three main opposition leaders as well as the representatives of the European and international community today. Meanwhile, protests continue in the city centre of Chisinau, without main developments lately.

Update (20:15): In a video you can see discussions between the president, the opposition parties, and the other communist leaders. The video is in Romanian, but you can see the most important political figures of Moldova: In the centre, President Voronin, on the right the three main opposition politicians Vlad Filat (Liberal Democratic Party PLDM; next to the president), Dorin Chirtoaca (the mayor of Chisinau, Liberal Party PL), and Serafim Urecheanu (Alliance "Our Moldova" AMN), and on the left the speaker of the Parliament Marian Lupu and the Prime Minister Zinaida Greceanîi. According to news reports, they have agreed on a recount, although I am not sure whether this could be counted as a win for the opposition because the results so far were only preliminary results that will have to be confirmed anyway. But as far as I can understand, it also about waiting with the recognition of the final results until all complaints by the opposition have been filed and dealt with by the Central Election Commission.

-----

Follow the story on Twitter:

• http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23pman
  
• Most cited tweets by Mihai Moscovici

Check the Moldovan site Unimedia with live information, videos, and photo material.

• A live stream by the Romanian TV

Some video footage from Chisinau:

• http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=64179594583&ref=nf
  
• Incredible 75 minutes video from the protests, morning hours of 7 April
  
• and here the continuation of the video in the afternoon (77 minutes).

Violence:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9676ubIVwc
  
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ar6c_n0PUE
  
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a2RKyCdL78 (pictures in front of Parliament building and at the Presidents's palace; "Jos Communisti" means "Down with the communists")
  

Video of presidential palace destruction: http://www.cyberculture.ro/blog/2009/04/07/video-proteste-la-chisinau/

Photos:
zzzop
Vladimir Plamadeala
On livejournal
Fire in the Parliament (unimedia)
During the morning (unimedia)
On Moldovarious.com
Benia on livejournal

Other blogs:
Nicu Popescu
INconstantIN
Scraps of Moscow
Kosmopolito
On the "Twitter Revolution"
Dumitru arguing against nationalistic tendencies

Statements:
EU Council expresses concerns (PDF)
OSCE in Moldova condemns violence
Council of Europe asks for dialogue
President Voronin calls actions a "putsch"

Beautifully naive - or how to use Facebook for political PR

Let me translate what German MEP Silvana Koch-Mehrin and liberal frontrunner in Germany is writing in her "blog" (on the online platform of a large weekly magazine) about her new Facebook appearance:

My 800 closest friends

I don't want to beat about the bush for long [...], and I therefore admit that the European Parliament election campaign was a good argument to create a Facebook account for me. Can any candidate after Obama live without it? But I have to say - already now I am fascinated what you can do with this Social Network.
Within one week I collected the stunning number of almost 800 friends. If it continues like this... Yippee! But it is not just about having as many friends as possible - you can really look over my virtual shoulder and see, what I am doing as a politician. You want to join? Then become my Facebook friend!

This is nice cross-marketing, sold with beautifully naive words. But does it reveal a true interest in Facebook as a communication tool - networking in the more basic sense of the word - or, as she writes, isn't Facebook just seen as a simple tool that offers some additional channels for PR, without much personal involvement of the person whose name the Facebook account carries?

Creating it so short before the elections makes it a pure campaign element, not more and not less. It doesn't represent a change in mindset, and I have the feeling that this is the general tendency of many of those campaigning for the European Parliament who find their way into the funny world of Social Networking - or better: Social Marketing:

They grasp for attention by being present, but they don't grasp for attention by being personal, concrete, involved. It all sounds just like PR.

They look for the new but they sound old. Ms Koch-Mehrin is just an example.