Last year’s astroturfing of Luton South

I’m catching up on various bits of unfinished business. One of which is to look back at a little incident from the campaign in Luton South during last year’s general election.

Just before polling day for I asked on this blog the question “Is someone using Twitter for dirty tricks in Luton South?“.

This referred to the use of a Twitter account named ‘lutonliberal‘, by someone we in the local party had never heard of, for what appeared to be a, rather amateurish, attempt to boost the campaign of independent candidate Esther Rantzen.

What I didn’t mention back then was that I was following another account, ‘LutonSouth2010‘, which wanted to give the appearance of coming from a, presumably independent, “journalist/blogger” but whose tweets were again an attempt to boost Esther.

Looking back on it now I am convinced that someone was trying to astroturf for Esther’s campaign. A conclusion that is supported by the fact that, in the almost nine months since the election, neither  ‘lutonliberal’ or ‘LutonSouth2010’ have tweeted anything.

What is the significance of this?

Well, not a lot if I am honest. Particularly given the very modest vote that Esther received!

Yet, it is a useful reminder that those involved in future high profile elections should keep a wary eye on what is said on Twitter and importantly on who is saying it.

This content was originally posted on my old Strange Thoughts blog.