The Facebook Blog

On Sunday, millions of people in Colombia will decide their country's political future by electing a new president. Some, like me, will submit ballots from overseas. If neither candidate gets more than 51 percent of the vote, the winner will be decided by a run-off election.

Regardless of who wins, what will make this election stand out in Colombia's history is that the candidates have found a new place to campaign: the Internet.

Facebook is one battleground where candidates are unleashing their political arsenals to lure voters. Thousands of... Colombians are closely following the elections through the candidates' Facebook Pages. Presidential candidates that have already amassed more than 100,000 connections on Facebook include Gustavo Petro, Juan Manuel Santos and Antanas Mockus.

Walls and discussion forums on Facebook offer a place for candidates to post campaign news, photos, videos and media coverage. More importantly, supporters are using Facebook to organize rallies and assemblies.

"The presidential campaigns in Colombia are trying to emulate some of the 'Obama phenomenon' practices that have caught the attention of so many political scientists and electoral experts around the world," says Victor Solano, a veteran Colombian journalist and new media specialist. "Facebook has been very important for the presidential campaign because it has allowed the creation of communities, debate in forums, the connection of users, and has created different applications that attract potential voters."

As someone who grew up in Colombia and now works at Facebook in the U.S., it's been fascinating to see how the political system in my home country has evolved. Unlike in past elections, this time there are remarkable differences in the candidates' political agendas and they are close in the opinion polls. Citizens like me are excited to have a stake in Colombia's political future.

Of course, the political, social and economic conditions of Colombia are very different to those of the United States. Going virtual may seem like a crazy idea, considering that only about 3.2 million Colombians have Internet access, or about 7 percent of the population, according to the Communications Secretary of Colombia.

Nonetheless, technology is changing the political landscape, encouraging more people to vote and helping them make informed decisions. Colombia's electoral authorities expect that more than 3 million new voters will participate in this election, in addition to the almost 30 million previously registered.

Because of Facebook, candidates are now closer than ever to their supporters and have a new medium to get their message out. But they're now also under a giant magnifying glass and are open to more scrutiny. A new political arena has emerged in Colombia that has taken the presidential candidates by surprise.

The battle to get more users to press the "Like" button continues. But one question still remains: How many of these people will take their virtual support to the voting booth on election day? We'll have to wait a couple more days to find out. Whatever the outcome, social media has changed the face of campaigning in Colombia and is now part of its political history.


Ada, an analyst on Facebook's Spanish user operations team, is wondering how the candidates' Facebook followers will react if there is an run-off election.


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¿Si "Me gusta" entonces voto?

El domingo 30 de mayo los colombianos decidirán el destino de su país en las urnas con la elección de un nuevo presidente. Millones de personas saldrán a votar en Colombia mientras otros lo haremos fuera de nuestra patria. En el caso de que ningún candidato consiga por lo menos el 51 por ciento de los votos, Colombia pasará a la "segunda vuelta".

Sin embargo, sea cual sea el resultado, estas elecciones quedarán para siempre en la memoria de esa nación, pues los candidatos presidenciales encontraron un nuevo lugar para hacer campaña política: Internet.

Facebook es uno de los campos de batalla donde los candidatos han atrincherado su arsenal de ideas para atraer a los posibles votantes. Miles de colombianos hemos seguido de cerca estas elecciones a través de sus páginas. Entre los candidatos que han conseguido más de 100.000 conexiones en Facebook se encuentran Gustavo Petro, Juan Manuel Santos y Antanas Mockus.

Los muros y foros de discusión ofrecen a los candidatos un espacio en el que publicar noticias, fotos y vídeos de la campaña y permiten a los seguidores convocar congregaciones y asambleas.

"Las campañas presidenciales en Colombia buscaron emular algunas de las prácticas del 'fenómeno Obama' que tanto ha llamado la atención de politólogos y estrategas electorales de todo el mundo", comenta Víctor Solano, experimentado periodista colombiano experto en medios de comunicación y nuevas tecnologías. "Facebook ha sido clave en la campaña presidencial porque ha permitido la creación de comunidades, foros de debate, grupos de usuarios y ha dado lugar a diversas aplicaciones que han atraído a electores potenciales", añade Solano.

Desde el punto de vista de alguien que nació y creció en Colombia, y que ahora trabaja en Facebook en Estados Unidos, para mí ha sido fascinante ver cómo el sistema político de mi país ha evolucionado. A diferencia de las elecciones anteriores, esta vez existen notables diferencias entre las plataformas políticas de los principales candidatos y su cercanía en materia de encuestas es abrumadora. Es emocionante poder ser partícipe de alguna manera del futuro de Colombia.

Por supuesto, no hace falta decir que las condiciones socio-económicas y políticas de ese país sudamericano no son siquiera semejantes a las de Estados Unidos. Teniendo en cuenta además que, según el Ministerio de Comunicaciones de Colombia, de los 43 millones de habitantes de ese país sólo un poco más de 3,2 millones cuentan con acceso a Internet, cerca del 7 por ciento, realizar una campaña virtual parecería no tener ningún sentido.

Sin embargo, las nuevas tecnologías están cambiando esta percepción y abriendo nuevas puertas para que los votantes tomen decisiones más informadas o simplemente se animen a votar. Las autoridades electorales esperan que más de 3 millones de nuevos votantes se unan a los casi 30 millones de colombianos ya registrados para votar.

Gracias a Facebook, los candidatos están ahora más cerca de sus seguidores y tienen una nueva herramienta para difundir su mensaje. Sin embargo, también los ha puesto bajo una lupa gigante y son más susceptibles de ser criticados. Una nueva e inesperada arena política ha surgido en Colombia que ha tomado por sorpresa a los candidatos presidenciales.

Continúa la batalla para que más usuarios presionen el botón "Me Gusta", pero aún queda una pregunta: ¿cuántos de estos usuarios pasarán de lo virtual a lo real y saldrán a las urnas el día de las elecciones? Tendremos que esperar un par de días más para saberlo. Sea cual sea el resultado electoral, las redes sociales entraron a formar parte de la historia de Colombia, país en el cual hacer campaña política ya no será lo mismo.


Ada, analista del equipo de operaciones de usuarios en Español, se pregunta: ¿qué pasará con los seguidores de los candidatos en Facebook en caso de una segunda vuelta?

With just a day left before the closely watched general election in Britain, Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats was the winner of a mock election held on Facebook, with 42 percent of the vote. David Cameron of the Conservative Party came second with 31 percent, while Gordon Brown of the Labour Party finished in third with 27 percent.

A total of 463,000 votes were cast in a home page polling ad displayed to people in the UK who visited Facebook over the bank holiday. The result was not intended to represent the voting population of the UK, but... be a snapshot of the opinions of those who responded.

The mock election was just one in a series of UK election activities happening for the first time on Facebook. At the time of the last British election in 2005, Facebook wasn't available to most people in the UK, while other social networking sites and services were in their infancy.

In 2010, however, Facebook has more people in the UK using it than the total number of votes cast in the last general election. In recent weeks one question has been asked by almost everybody in Britain: What would the impact of the online world be on the political views of the British public?

We'll soon find out how closely the Facebook mock election matches the real one, but since the election was called on April 6, we already have seen people in the UK and around the world flock to Facebook and other sites to get informed, share their opinions and even rate the candidates' debate performances.

To help people join the debate, we launched Democracy UK on Facebook. This Page, which has more than 160,000 people connected to it, has posted a constant stream of serious and light-hearted news and discussion, including question-and-answer sessions with notable journalists providing a range of opinions. Democracy UK also hosted two applications—VoteMatch and My Vote Advisor—to help people determine which party and policies they might most closely align with.

Rating the Debates

While televised debates between political candidates are commonplace elsewhere in the world, this year saw Britain's first experience of them. The TV debates were an historic moment. More than 80,000 people logged on to use ITV's Livestream, which enabled people to post updates alongside the live online streaming of the debate on the ITV website, while thousands of additional people did the same on the Sky News website.

UK broadcasters, though, had restrictions on the type of audience reaction they could show during debates. So we gave people an opportunity on the Democracy UK on Facebook Page to interact with each other and discuss the debates while also giving real-time feedback on the performance of the party leaders. Through the Rate the Debate application, people could participate in a real time "dial test," clicking on a moving dial to indicate their feelings about what was being said at that moment in time and seeing aggregated results (as shown below).



In addition, in partnership with YouTube, Facebook crowdsourced questions from potential voters that were then put to Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. Questions were sourced using an application hosted at Democracy UK on Facebook and on YouTube's dedicated election channel.

The result? Party leaders answered the most popular questions based on more than 180,000 votes on the more than 5,300 questions submitted. See the answers by clicking the "Digital Debate" tab on Democracy UK.

Getting Out the Vote

In Britain voters had to be registered by April 20. Research suggested that about 3.5 million people who were eligible to vote in England and Wales were not registered. In response, Facebook and the Electoral Commission worked together to create a new application, enabling the 23 million people using Facebook in the UK to download a personalised voter registration form. The effort increased voter registrations by thousands in a matter of days.

Whether you're in the UK or not, you can follow tomorrow's election by liking the Democracy UK on Facebook Page for more updates and joining future election debates for your country.


Richard, Facebook's director of policy in Europe, is a recovering politician.