Election day in the United States became the most tweeted about event in
US political history Tuesday with enthusiastic netizens firing off 20
million poll-related tweets, the social network said.
With his
re-election all-but-confirmed, President Barack Obama took to Twitter to thank
his supporters in a series of tweets. First with a "This happened
because of you. Thank you.", "We're all in this together. That's how we
campaigned, and that's who we are. Thank you. -bo" and then simply a
"Four more years." with a picture of the first couple hugging.
The last tweet quickly became the most retweeted ever, with over 300,000 retweets in less than 40 minutes.Earlier,
Americans flocked to Twitter and other platforms all day in a massive
social media burst, posting photographic proof they had cast their
ballots, cheering their favorite candidates along and analyzing the
latest polls.
"With 20 million tweets, Election Day just became
the most tweeted about event in US political history," Twitter announced
on its official government and politics account @gov.
The number
far surpassed the 10.3 million tweets sent during the first presidential
debate last month - an event the popular social network had at the time
billed a record in US political history.
In an indication of the
importance of social networks in the presidential race, both Barack
Obama and Mitt Romney took to Twitter, Facebook and Reddit just hours
ahead of polls closing to make last-ditch pushes for votes.
The
campaigns have used social media extensively over the past few months to
push people to vote and even try and beat the record 2008 turnout, when
two-thirds of US voters cast a ballot.
(With inputs from AFP)
0 comments:
Post a Comment