Undeniably, social media played a significant role in GE14 as how it did in the past 2  elections, while there has been reports on how the new preferred messaging tool of the young is seen as an ‘opinion shaper’ this technology is also a method for citizens to get ‘real’ facts often inaccessible from state controlled media. In a world of smart devices where the demand is real-time news, quick concise information that can be shared and obtained within seconds as events unfold becomes the go-to channel for many, in the case of GE14 it was Twitter.

From breaking news to conversations with political parties, candidates, journalists, and citizens, Twitter with its video channel was accessed by millions tuning into live events in real-time and buzz over hot election topics and developments. Election Day discussions overtook all other conversations in the country with over 4.2 million Tweets related to GE14 took place in 24 hours from across Malaysia and the world, taking the top spot and 7th in the world.

Between the two political coalitions, Pakatan Harapan (@pakatanharapan_) garnered 51% of the share of voice on Twitter while Barisan Nasional (@barisanasional) took 49%. Dr Mahathir Mohamad (@chedetofficial) took 58% of the share of voice on Twitter against Mohd Najib Tun Razak (@najibrazak) who took 42%.

The battle on the channel was clearly being won by Dr Mahathir with 58% command of conversation with Najib ending with 42%. Philip Chua, Global Government and Elections Lead, Twitter Asia-Pacific commented “It was tremendous to see how people across Malaysia and the world watched the rallies and Tweeted about the election over the past few months and on Election Day, all leading up to this historic moment for Malaysia.”

However, we do acknowledge the importance social media plays but placing 100% faith on the new media solely will not be advisable, fact checking on every user generated content that appear on these platforms should be a more responsible thing to do before they are shared.