G20: Social Media Review

Citizen webcams and foursquare are some of the more interesting social networking tools being put to use during this year's G20 Summit in Toronto. Following up on social media's significant role in the 2009 G20 Summit in London, this year's summit has expanded even more the role of social media and citizen journalism for those monitoring, reporting and participating in the summit. As the week-long summit comes to an end, some interesting (and ironic) roles for social media tools and technologies have become apparent with organizers, protesters, journalists and citizens all making widespread use of the tools.

As expected, demonstrators and NGO's made heavy use of social media to organize and communicate updates and events with members and the public. Several independent webcams were set up and live streams of parts of the security zone in downtown Toronto were fed to UStream and other sites while Twitter feeds filled with reports of arrests and the movements of security forces. Public distaste for the fences, barriers and inconveniences associated with G20 security was substantial and readily apparent from a wide range of social networking sites. A site was even setup on Foursquare for the G20 Detention Center where police and security forces deposit protesters following arrest and detainment (currently with 27 checkins and 22 unique visitors). Citizen journalist sites such as Demotix were filled with reports monitoring police and protester activities.

G20 organizers also made extensive use of social media outlets, with police and security forces making heavy (and expected) use of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The Toronto police setup and advertised their social media hub, a centralized online location where users are directed to a number of Twitter feeds and Facebook pages and a series of YouTube videos offering information on everything from parking changes to interviews to protest March reports (footage of burning police cars, however, are notably absent). In what is perhaps one of the more interesting uses of social media by G20 organizers, the government of Canada had it's content solution company, OpenText, create a collaboration platform for G20 delegates, bringing social media tools to the core of the negotiation process. The platform is a secure, member-only "2.0 collaboration platform" for G20 delegates and politicians that allows users to blog, post comments and transfer documents in a Facebook-style environment. Content can be created, tagged and shared and users have mobile access to the system.