unicornnews: Cash-Gordon's Twitter snag

Another one from the political world, though one that provides a lesson in digital communications. An effort to seize the digital initiative in the upcoming General Election back-fired on Conservative supporters yesterday after the makers of a political website failed to grasp the risk of allowing Twitter-generated content to automatically appear on your site.

The website is called Cash-Gordon, and aims to embarrass the Labour government over the large donations the Labour Party receives from the union Unite, currently in the headlines for spearheading the unpopular British Airways strike. The website encourages visitors to read a speech by Tory frontbencher Michael Grove, to bug former Labour advisor and now Unite political director Charlie Wheelan via his social media accounts, and to check out what is being said about the campaign on the Twitter network.

Unfortunately the latter was enabled by a widget that showed any Twitter message containing the so called ‘hash tag’ #cashgordon. Labour supporters and general jokers on Twitter used this fact to tweet anti-Tory or just generally offensive remarks, alongside the required hash tag, knowing their contributions would then appear, albeit for a short time, on the home page of the anti-Labour website.

According to the Guardian, more advanced Twitter users then worked out how to embed images and programmes into their tweets that would add extra unwanted content to the political website, while others worked out how to use the Twitter widget to force a redirect, so that people going to the site would be taken to another, at one time the Labour Party website, at another the Rick Astley video that is so frequently used in online practical jokes these days.

Despite initially insisting a totally unregulated approach to #cashgordon tweets would be maintained, the website’s owners later admitted misuse by the Twitterati had forced them to remove that element of the site. As of last night it was back, but with a moderator installed to decide which Tweets go live. So much so, one Tweeter remarked “Aw, #cashgordon tweets are no fun anymore now that the feed’s moderated. I’m going to bed. Night all”. That tweet made it through moderation though.

The lesson for digital PRs? Probably best not to put an unmoderated hash-tag-based Twitter feed on your home page. Especially if you are involved in anything vaguely political.

Posted Tuesday March 23 2010 by Chris Cooke

Related categories: Digital PR & Viral Marketing Political Communications