U.S. President Barack Obama has been flocking to Twitter of late, starting to actually send out Tweets himself and even holding a town hall on the platform. And in his statement to the American public today, President Obama encouraged U.S. citizens to “call, email and Tweet,” their members of congress about the debt ceiling issue.
Basically the U.S. treasury is in danger of running out of cash and the government has a limit in borrowing. The President has asked lawmakers to raise the debt ceiling, and both Democrat and Republican lawmakers are currently embroiled in negotiations. Of course, politically speaking, the president is in a desperate situation with the debt ceiling issue and is relying on the American people to put pressure on lawmakers to raise the ceiling before the Treasury runs out of cash.
From the technology standpoint, I think it’s fascinating that Obama placed Tweeting in the same group as methods of communication like phone or email. In his speech today, Obama told citizens that they need to put the pressure on lawmakers via these three methods of communications. And notice, he didn’t say Facebook message your Congressperson. It’s no doubt a pretty big endorsement for Twitter.
One thing that was missing from his call to action—a hashtag.
In case you are interested in finding your Member of Congress’ Twitter handle, TweetCongress provides a database of lawmakers on Twitter.
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