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Dublin: 10 °C Wednesday 19 June, 2013

No rules to stop #euref campaigns from continuing on social media

They can’t talk about it, but they can tweet about it. Political parties take to social media to continue campaigning.

THEY CAN’T TALK about it on TV or Radio and neither can anyone else, but there’s nothing stopping them from taking to Twitter to continue campaigning.

Both sides of the fence on the Fiscal Treaty referendum have been taking advantage of their social media platforms to canvass for those last votes.

Fine Gael tweeted a video from their side at 3.48pm, just under two hours after the moratorium kicked off:

Sinn Féin have also been tweeting this afternoon, about party president Gerry Adams advocating a No vote:

While Fianna Fáil tweeted a picture of leader Micheál Martin rubbing shoulders with celebrity chef Rachel Allen in Midleton in Cork:

And the Socialist Party tweeted a link also calling for a No vote:

A spokesperson for the Broadcasting  Authority of Ireland told TheJournal.ie that the authority only had jurisdiction over television and radio broadcasts.

A Referendum Commission spokesperson meanwhile said that there are no rules in the legislation governing the moratorium and that the issue comes under the remit of the BAI.

Hat tip to @Proinnsias for posing the question earlier.

If you want to catch up on all of our referendum coverage, then go right ahead>

Or, you can avoid it completely, with our Referendum Free Zone>

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Comments (12 Comments)

  • Just a gentle reminder to people to stay on topic in the comments section. Give us your thoughts on the story about social media, not about how you’re planning to vote.

    Thanks,
    Emer

    Reply
  • Yeah Susie, that’s really in-line with what Emer just said above about remaining on-topic #facepalm

    Reply
  • Traditional media is dead. Politicians are right to use these methods to get their views across regardless of which side of the debate they are on. Followers of their tweeting are most likely to share the policy stances of those who tweet in the first instance so the benefits are probably quite limited.

    Reply
    • I follow all parties and a few politicians, I don’t agree with any of them, I like to keep up wit news and politics (and im nosey). I was looking forward to a bit of ref free time and as soon as I go into twitter there are several posts from various parties continuing their campaign. I had assumed that social media was considered broadcasting but apparently the moratorium rule came in prior to proliferation of social media so its not included. It definitely needs to be looked at considering huge amount of people use it for news.

      Reply
  • The moratorium in its current form makes no sense today with the internet and sites like twitter, The Journal.ie or Politics.ie. Even aside from this however the moratorium doesn’t extend to UK TV Channels, so the BBC, Channel 4 and Sky News can all still report on the referendum and lots of Irish people have access to these Channels.

    Reply
  • What’s more interesting to me is the whole issue of public money being used to advocate a yes or no vote… if the taxpayer is covering the cost of mobiles/pc’s/internet connections, is a party (or politician) tweeting advocating a yes vote in breach of the rules?

    It may seem a petty argument, but it is one that’s interesting (to me at least)

    Reply
  • Jay funk 30/05/12 #

    What’s the story with the UPC catchup, I can still watch last nights Vincent brown, is that considered tv or Internet ?

    Reply
    • And what’s the story with those “+1 channels”? So say if there was an RTE1+1 channel and RTE News at 1 talked about the referendum. But then at 2pm when the moratorium kicked in, would RTE1+1 still be able to broadcast?!! I don’t think there is an RTE1+1 Channel…but still that could some day be a possibility!

      P.S. would RTE 1+1 not be = RTE2?!! My head hurts…

      Reply
  • Joan Collins T.D. ‏@JoanCollinsTD
    “I’ve released to the media the Bus Éireann meeting next week with unions and the covering up of it until after the #euref is over.”
    https://twitter.com/#!/search/joancollinstd

    Reply
  • Susie was replying to a post I made which made reference to an episode of the Vincent Browne show. that was subsequently removed #getyourfactsstraight

    Reply
  • I think it’s a shame the journal is continuing on about the referendum, even if the story is about social media.

    Yea yea sure I don’t have to click on the story, but i can’t help it. I’d rather not be able to.

    The moratorium is a nice tradition if anything.

    Reply
  • There is an RTE +1 channel on UPC. So in answer to your question: I don’t know

    Reply

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