The infographic gives a quick view of social media statistics during the Lebanese parliamentary election, 2018. The importance of social media for election campaigning has received a lot of attention recently. Social media monitoring can provide key insights from users who are actively talking about the election in Lebanon and abroad.
This is the first Lebanese election in the social media age – What are the Lebanese saying on social media? and who is winning the Lebanese Election battle on social media?
According to users on social media:
- The top corrupt political party/Politician in Lebanon: نبيه بري Nabih Berry / Haraket Amal حركة أمل
- The political party with the worst electoral alliances: Tayyar Watani Hor التيار الوطني الحر
- The least corrupt political party/Politician in Lebanon: سمير جعجع Samir Geagea / Lebanese Forces القوات اللبنانية
- The political party/politician with major accomplishments: جبران باسيل Gebran Bassil / Tayyar Watani Hor التيار الوطني الحر & Future Movement تيار المستقبل / Saad Hariri سعد الحريري
- The political party with best electoral alliances: Haraket Amal حركة أمل & Hezbollah حزب الله
- The politician using mostly sectarian speech: جبران باسيل Gebran Bassil
- The politician most negatively affected by his past: سمير جعجع Samir Geagea
- The political party with the best electoral program: Koullouna watani
- The politician who is mostly accused of talking nonsense: سامي الجميل Kataeb الكتائب
- The politician using least sectarian speech: تيمور جنبلاط Teymour Joumblat
Check out the infographic below for a full summary of the analysis.
Data source: Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums, Instagram, Comments, Tumblr, Reddit, Google+.
Date: 25/02/2018 – 25/04/2018
Below is a list of major topics and events that shaped (positive & negative effects) the results of the analysis based on the data collected from users:
- Saudi Oger
- CEDRE Conference
- Candidate Sarkis Sarkis
- رفيق الحريري
- إيران
- داتا المغتربين
- وليد جنبلاط
- Nouhad Machnouk “الأوباش” Video
- توريث
- حقوق المسيحية
- التحالف الشيعي
- إسرائيل
- العهد
- إقتراع المغتربين
- Hariri Selfie App
- بلطجي
- حرب سورية
- التوطين
- سلاح حزب الله
- كلام الناس
- ملف بواخر الكهرباء
- مجرم حرب
- المصالحة
- موازنة
- دق الجرس
- تحالف الجماعة الاسلامية
- علي الأمين
The analysis focused on the hashtags of the electoral slogan of each party during the past two months, the most influential candidate, and the candidates party. The data & insights of this infograph have been sourced from Crimson Hexagon.
So can social media be used to predict election results? There has been couple apps and surveys to poll voters prior to the parliamentary elections yet the analysis of social media did a better job at predicting Trump’s win than the polls. Yet, there is no conclusive proof that social media is associated with election votes and the probability of success. Besides the widespread use of fake social media profiles and bots on all social networks.
Crimson Hexagon is a platform that uses artificial intelligence to analyze consumer insights on social media and other online data sources. The platform is used by Netflix, amazon, BBC….
Feel free to use the data & infographic above but make sure to link back to this article.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants announced that the online registration has closed. More than 90,0000 registered Lebanese expats will be voting in the upcoming Lebanese elections 2018.
This is the first time in the history of Lebanon in which non-resident Lebanese will be able to vote. I work as a social media and digital marketing consultant in Lebanon, so I was excited to check the website. Not only i was shocked that the website does not comply with international data privacy and protection laws. But also users who visit this site are being tracked using cookies without their consent.
Below you can see that the website has two google analytics codes installed and one facebook pixel. So who has access to the Lebanese expats data and is the data protected?
This would be normal if the users actually know that they are being tracked, which is not the case. You can’t see any terms or privacy policy on the website to indicate who owns and manages the data? Where is the data being collected, and how will the data be used? Is the data managed by the ministry of foreign affairs or ministry of interior? This is quite surprising as even a basic website applies data protection measures so imagine if it’s a government website that has sensitive data!
So what is a cookie and what can we do with it?
Have you ever noticed that you recently visited a website and suddenly that becomes the focus of online ads following you on different websites? A cookie tracks your browsing behavior and can be set to be valid for any amount of time.
In a simple explanation, once you visit a website, I can target you with ads that show up on other websites across different devices. While Facebook can use the data collected to expand your current user base to “lookalike audience”. This helps you target people with similar likes, interests, and demographics to people who are already interacting with your website.
Example. I can actually launch a “Fake News” campaign on Facebook and target everyone who visited diasporavote.mfa.gov.lb with a certain advertising message. Then target those 90K who registered with another ad. I can also expand my campaign to those who didn’t visit the site but rather look similar, Lebanese living abroad on Facebook. “Fake News” can impact the results of the upcominh elections in Lebanon similar to what happened in the 2016 presidential election in the United States of America.
International laws for data protection should be applied in Lebanon even if its the government collecting the data.
Nevertheless, the ability of Lebanese expats to vote for the very first time is a great initiative launched by Minister Gebran Basil to hopefully succeed in changing the political situation in Lebanon
Update:
This post was featured in the dailystar and on TV
5 months after writing this post, thinking a “political party” will use cookies and unprotected data to track users. Well today registrants are being contacted by emails and text messages…
Today Lebanon is in desperate need of a political revolution. “#YouStink” movement has failed to change the regime but it has succeeded in shaking up the country, attracting the vast majority of the population and reawakening the Lebanese which shed light on the impact of social movements in achieving change. Sabaa, a supposedly new political movement launched an extensive campaign on facebook and billboards across the entire country.
The teaser campaign is well prepared in terms of content and layout and has managed to generate curiosity, interest, and engagement. The amount of money spent to advertise the new social movement has speculated lots of conspiracy theories although there are lots of Lebanese in Lebanon and abroad willing to fund and support the cause of a better Lebanon without having hidden incentives. No statements were released to further explain the simple political slogans, videos, and designs used in the campaign which went viral triggering massive numbers of “facebook fans” in a short period of time and heavily engaging the Lebanese community.
Monitoring the limited content shared on their facebook page, you can draw few common personalities of users in the Lebanese community:
- Naive: Already showed blind support for the movement and are ready to follow without even knowing what they represent.
- Judgemental: Already believe the movement is deceptive, thrown accusations and drew their own conclusions.
- Pessimistic: Already assumed the movement will fail without even knowing what the movement is about.
- The Amazing: Those who actually want to listen: Showed enthusiasm, support for the cause not the movement itself, and are looking forward to knowing more before commenting.
The current political situation in Lebanon and the government’s failure to provide basic services has pushed the Lebanese to look for hope and change in the recent rising movements. So let’s hope Sabaa “SabaaPolitics” will actually produce real change.
If you go back to the recent incidents happening in Lebanon from theft, violence, and public sector corruption and the outrageous reaction of the Lebanese on social media towards the absence of governmental actions to find solutions, you would expect at some point to see this coming as i have previously written about Social Media in Lebanon: A Powerful Force for Change.
Social movements do no just happen, but develop through different stages. “طلعت_ريحتكم” or “YouStink” is the result of oppression and injustice that Lebanese have endured equally for a long period of time and the garbage crisis was only the straw that broke the camel’s back. Despite their religious, socioeconomic status, Lebanese society came together as one, to voice their disgust over the garbage crisis that united them together for the first time in years.
The Lebanese cabinet failed to agree on a solution for the country’s long-running garbage crisis while trash piled up across Beirut and elsewhere posing a threat to people’s health and environment. Anger about the massive amounts of trash accumulating on the streets provoked the rise of a trending “online campaign” after thousands flooded social media with pictures and posts telling the government you stink.
The campaign became trending worldwide gathering more than 200k tweets and “طلعت_ريحتكم” Facebook Page managed to attract more than 120k people in less than a week.
Fed up with the situation, a group of activists urged people using different social media networks to join their protest and the demonstration that started with few hundreds developed to thousands of Lebanese who took the streets with the support of civil society groups against the government’s failure to take action and have the large piles of rubbish which have been building up in the capital for weeks removed. The demonstrations led to clashes with riot police after police fired rubber bullets and doused demonstrators with water hoses. Dozens of demonstrates and police were injured and now “YouStink” is demanding the government to resign.
Lebanon’s garbage crisis has managed to reveal political paralysis. Whether “YouStink” will succeed in achieving a revolution or transform into a political movement, it has definitely given hope that the spark of change has not died in Lebanon.