It’s been a big week on Facebook for WebCom. You know how we’ve been obsessing about what happens to all those comments we get on our Facebook page? Well, this week provided one answer.

It all started with this post on the Parliament wall about the situation in Syria, where the government was (and is) cracking down on protesters.  Very quickly, we noticed two things: first, the comment column started filling up with comments by Facebook users in Bahrain; second, there was a jump in the number of fans on the page.

The comments, taken together, were unlike anyhing we have ever had before. They were a direct appeal to the European Parliament for help. They were not light reading. Here are just a few:

Alooy Hassan We in Bahrain, we ask you to help, the government of torturing prisoners and treat them with great violence and sentenced to death for four of them
People are treated harshly and I can not describe the situation here
Please help us.

Om Alsadah help us in Bahrain they kill us

Ahmed T. ALsaeed Before we start speaking about syria lets take a look at BAHRAIN . from the crackdown untill now tanks are everywere mosques are being razed, hospitals are surrounded

سلطان مباركي Bahrain| Death sentences given to pro-democracy protesters: Ali Singace, Abdulaziz Hussain, Qasim Matar, and Said Abduljalil
(Take action please.. Bahraini people want urgent help)

Many of the comments focused in the four death sentences handed down by a Bahraini court, others were a broader cry for help. Over the next few days, the comments kept coming, from many different users, commenting on whatever we posted, drawing attention to the situation in Bahrain and asking for the help of the European Parliament.

The unusual jump in the number of fans, which we would put at about a thousand extra in a day or two was clearly linked to the Bahrain phenomenon. Facebook “insights” data doesn’t provide precise enough detail to be certain, but our regular checks of the latest fans in that period told us that the latest joiners were overwhelmingly Arabic and mostly (where we could tell) Bahraini.

This was something a bit different, a concerted use of the page to call for political action from the Parliament

We have had passionate opinion and debate on the Facebook page before – indeed, we get it all the time – but this was something a bit different, a concerted use of the page to call for political action from the Parliament. It cried out for a direct response, though, clearly, in this case, the only valid response would be a political one. Which is why we turned to the political authorities, in particular the President and the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

In the past, we have sometimes found it hard consistently to motivate Members of Parliament to enter into discussions on the Facebook page, though we systematically notify relevant Members (committee and office holders, rapporteurs, delegation leaders, etc.) about ongoing discussions of the subjects that could concern them. It seems that the reflex is not always there yet to use this new channel in a political way. In this case, however, possibly because of the directness and urgency of the appeal, the reaction was immediate and clear.

The President was the first to react, condemning the death sentences in a statement, which we posted on Parliament’s page and the President similarly posted on his. Parliament’s post drew 814 interactions (one of the highest numbers we have had), of which, very unusually, more than half (420) were comments. The President’s post received 52 comments, most of which were variants on “thank you”. (Figures at time of writing.)

“The Bahraini population, especially young people using social networks such as Facebook, turns to the European Parliament for support”

The President is an established presence on the social media, but the reaction of the Foriegn Affairs committee, when they found out about the Bahraini pleas on Facebook, broke new ground. In a statement issued jointly by Foreign Affairs committee chairman, Gabriele Albertini; Human Rights sub-committee chair, Heidi Hautala; and Arab Peninsula delegation leader, Angelika Niebler, the three MEPs noted that “the Bahraini population, especially young people using social networks such as Facebook, turns to the European Parliament for support”, condemned the death sentences, and announced Albertini’s intention to summon the Bahraini ambassador to discuss the matter. We posted the statement in its entirety on the Facebook page, where it has again generated a high level of interaction. At the same time, Baroness Ashton, the EU High Representative on foreign policy, issued her own statement on the death sentences, substantially increasing pressure on the Bahraini authorities on this point. This statement was issued after representations from Parliament, as we have seen alerted by the Facebook Bahrainis. Ashton will be in Parliament for a major set-piece foreign affairs debate next week. Perhaps there will be more from her then.

This episode marks an important landmark in the progress of social media in the life of the Parliament

It is possible that none of this will change the course of history, but, whatever happens next, this episode at least marks an important landmark in the progress of social media in the life of the Parliament. Just as Facebook has played an undisputed role in helping the Arab Spring on its way, we now see it play an unambiguous role in the political life of the European Parliament, fittingly enough in the self-same context.

What, of course, this all underlines is the fact that the social media, unlike many traditional forms of mass communication, provide a genuinely two-way channel of communication and that this fact has potentially important ramifications for the political life of the European Parliament. We still encounter the attitude that communicating via Facebook, Twitter & co is somehow a peripheral activity, useful for talking to the kids, perhaps, but essentially a frivolous, non-serious pastime. Perhaps Parliament’s new Bahraini Facebook fans, who – yes – may even be “kids”, will help spread an understanding that these social media tools will end up being much more significant than that.