Moldova uprising was organised on Twitter

CHISINAU, April 8 — A Twitter uprising has taken place in Moldova, with anti-communists using the internet site to mobilise supporters and organise a demonstration in the country’s capital.

Activists apparently used the tag ‘#pman’ on their tweets to build a network of supporters.

Evgeny Morozov, author of the net.effect blog for Foreign Policy magazine, writes: “No, “pman” is not short for ‘pacman’; it stands for Piata Marii Adunari Nationale, which is Romanian name for the biggest square in Chisinau, Moldova’s capital.

“This is not the first time that a Twitter tag has been used to mobilise young people around a particular event; the most famous previous case has been that of ‘griots’ — the tag used to report on the youth riots in Greece, which later spread to Europe, arguably also with the help of Twitter.”

Likewise there were reports that last week’s G20 demonstrations were being organised by Twitter and certainly Twitter played a role in reporting on them.

But Twitter is by no means unique in this ability. Before Twitter mobile phones were used as a way to organise large groups quickly. In the Philippines in 2001, President Joseph Estrada was unseated after hundreds of thousands of protestors took to the streets in demonstrations largely organised by text message.

Emails and text messages are credited with a significant role in the election of President Roh Moo Hyun in South Korea in 2002.

More recently the Barack Obama campaign made extensive use of social networking sites, particularly Facebook, to raise money for the 2008 election.

We will see more of this in the future thanks to Twitter and tools like it. Twitter’s flexibility makes this kind of group organisation very easy.

There’s no need for anyone to be in charge. Once a few people have started things off, movements can develop organically, and very quickly.

Moldova may seem like an unlikely place for a Twitter revolution but the Internet makes it easier for people to find the right tools. For now Twitter is the right tool and its influence cannot be constrained. — Daily Telegraph