More than just a load of twittering
The people of Britain have united on Twitter to defend the National Health Service – with 11,000 people sharing more than 20,500 'tweets' in just two days in response to critics in the US claiming the system is "evil and Orwellian".
The level of involvement in this discussion has been impressive – infact Twitter was so overwhelmed with the volume of messages on the NHS that it crashed.
The response is being driven by people sharing personal stories and putting forward evaluations on the merits of public health over a private insurance scheme. By tagging their tweets with the #welovethenhs hashtag, others can find, read and share what they have said.
This debate is a fantastic example of people sharing ideas within the online community and it is great to see so many pulling together to defend a system that is close to everyone’s hearts.
Politicians are also getting in on the debate, with both Gordon Brown and David Cameron posting messages on Twitter. It will be interesting to see how the Labour and Conservative leaders respond to the #welovethenhs Twitter debate as with such momentum it could prove an invaluable platform for winning or losing votes for both.
However, sometimes hashtags can cause problems. The recent #iranelection discussion attracted thousands of responses but within days spammers adopted the tag – with Habitat coming under fire for using hashtags about Iran and the Apple iPhone to promote its summer sale.
That said, for quickly escalating debates like this, hashtags on Twitter are a useful way of showing the strength and weight of opinion on a particular issue. With both the media and politicians picking up the debate, it shows there’s more to Twitter than just a load of twittering.