Twitter announces livestreams, new emoji for Ontario’s June election

Twitter Canada has unveiled a handful of initiatives and statistics focused on June’s Ontario provincial election.

To start, Twitter says it will be launching its first ever custom emoji for an Ontario election on Monday, May 7th. Users will be able to unlock the emoji by tweeting #OntarioVotes, #onelxn or #onpoli.

On the same day, Canadians will be able to livestream the following two election events on Twitter:

Laidlaw Foundation Youth Town Hall event — Livestream begins Monday, May 7th at 1pm ET (a partnership with TVO’s The Agenda)

#CityVote: The Debate — the first televised leaders debate will be livestreamed on Monday, May 7th at 6pm ET (in a partnership with Rogers and CityNews); CityNews will also post Twitter polls for viewers that will be shared during the debate

Finally, Twitter detailed what Canadians have been saying on Twitter in regards to the Ontario election. According to the social media giant, these are the three dates that saw the highest volume of #onpoli conversation on the platform: 

• Sunday, February 25th — Patrick Brown exits the Ontario PC Party leadership race
• Wednesday, February 28th — The final televised Ontario PC Party leadership debate
• Saturday, March 10th — Doug Ford wins Ontario PC Party leadership vote to become the new party leader

As well, Twitter says that overall, Doug Ford has had 1.4 times more mentions than Kathleen Wynne on Twitter and 8.6 times more mentions than Andrea Horwath.

Twitter isn’t the only social media platform getting involved with the Ontario election. On May 3rd, Facebook Canada announced that it will be offering security and digital literacy resources to political parties to maintain election integrity, as part of a larger effort to assist with the democratic process in Canadian politics.