A lack of face

With just three days to go to the local elections, it’s a bit late to be running stories about the use of social networking sites to encourage voting.

Facebook used to galvanise voters
Social networking website Facebook is being used by a Wiltshire council to encourage people to vote.

Swindon Borough Council said the aim was to help make it easier for citizens to find information about the election and to exchange ideas with others.

Swindon Borough Council actually ‘said’ very little: the BBC has just copied the words from the council’s website. And if they’d bothered to check, they would have seen that they have hardly galvanised anyone: the Facebook group has just eleven members, three of whom are administrators.

There is a story here: it is one of poorly promoted experiments and inefficient use of council staff time.