On the day of the elections, social media users in the United Kingdom turned to Facebook and Twitter to either post that they have exercised their right to vote or to encourage others to do their civic duty.
On Facebook, a special "I'm a voter" button appeared in the users' timeline, which they can click to share the message with friends. The button has generated over one million hits as of 1:30 p.m. BST, according to the Telegraph.
On Twitter, users have been prompted with an election-related banner on the top of the page and the hashtag #IVoted trended in the U.K. after the polls closed. The hashtag #GE0215 also trended on the social media site, but for more amusing reasons as the typo on the date indicated that the British voted in an election from 1,800 years ago, according to a report from the Independent.
A little concerned that democracy is in the hands of all the people who got #GE0215 trending…
— richard (@richtard) May 7, 2015
#DogsAtPollingStations also went viral as users shared adorable photos of themselves and their dogs at the polling booths. The practice of bringing dogs in this public setting is allowed on this side of the pond, as long as the pets do not disturb other voters or the voting process, according to Express UK.
My human voted! I just posed #DogsAtPollingStations @GAdams_Spink @TeddytheToller pic.twitter.com/nWXmR1LoB9 — Leica The Toller (@leicathetoller) May 7, 2015
Currently, no explicit election laws on social media sharing exists in the U.K., but the Electoral Commission has released a statement to clarify if sharing how people have voted in the elections could land them in trouble.
"A voter may volunteer information about who they voted for, provided no undue influence is exerted on them to do so. There is no explicit provision in law that prevents people from tweeting or re-tweeting that information. There is, however, provision to prevent exit polls to be published until polls have closed," said the statement as published on The Next Web. -
Meanwhile, Wikipedia pages of party leaders like Nick Clegg of the Liberals and Natalie Bennett of the Green party had been defaced, reported The Guardian. Even current Prime Minister David Cameron was not excused. His Wikipedia page was temporarily replaced with Ed Miliband's profile, who is running under the Labour party. All profiles, however, have been restored.
