It was a busy week for social media and politics with announcements from notable players including Twitter and the White House.
YouTube and Fox held the sixth GOP debate online, the White House launched a petitions platform and Twitter dipped its toes into political advertising.
This is the Week in Politics & Digital.
YouTube and Fox Host GOP Debate
The sixth GOP presidential debate, which was co-hosted by YouTube and Fox, took place on Thursday. The debate made a concerted push to include questions and feedback from the public thanks to a lively forum on the debate’s YouTube channel. More than a dozen top-rated questions were posed to the participants from a pool of more than 18,000.
YouTube and parent company Google extended that interactivity to the debate where users could comment and answer polls as the debate happened. YouTube has put out some search stats from the night and is asking users to go to the channel and vote on which responses — and candidates — fared best.
White House Launches Petitions Platform
The White House has launched a new web portal to crowdsource public advice, opinion and petitions. We the People lets anyone older than 13 create a petition, collect digital signatures and put it in front of the government. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts and issue an official response. The platform of course doesn’t guarantee any government action and it’s unclear how and if the White House will deal with spam petitions, but We the People is conceptually a step in the right direction.
Twitter Tests Water with Political Advertisements
Twitter began accepting political advertisements, including Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was one of the first test subjects. The program has yet to role out in earnest but it will be interesting to see, if approved, how Twitter will deal with political attack ads and both sides of the aisle vying for the spotlight.
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