Facebook confirms existence of bug that caused Vivian Balakrishnan’s Cooling-off Day auto-post

For those of you still doubting the legitimacy of Dr Vivian Balakrishnan’s explanation behind the Cooling-off Day gaffe, here’s Facebook themselves confirming that the fault lies with them, and them only. 

Eyebrows were raised when the People’s Action Party (PAP) candidate for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC was thought to have flouted the electoral rules —  screengrabs of a tweet he posted yesterday morning went viral online, with many accusing him of ignoring Cooling-off Day regulations. Candidates were not allowed to carry out walkabouts, advertisements, meetings, and certainly no posting on social media yesterday, the day before citizens head to polling stations to cast their vote. 

Photo: States Times Review reader

Dr Balakrishnan responded later on that the tweet went out due to an auto-posting glitch that had been affecting his page recurrently. Not many were convinced though. 

Today however,  spokesperson for Facebook confirmed that there was indeed a bug in their technical system which led to the auto-posted tweet, which was linked to Dr Balakrishnan’s Facebook page.

That should absolve the Minister from a slip-up which may have garnered the wrath of the Elections Department. Channel NewsAsia reports that he wasn’t the only one that may have breached electoral rules — the Elections Department mentioned that there were several election advertising postings on social media by a few candidates and parties, including the PAP, People’s Power Party and Reform Party in the wee hours of Cooling-off Day. Tut tut, you scamps. 

Anyway, Dr Balakrishnan may have been vindicated about yesterday’s mistake, but that hasn’t excused him from making a bold statement that his party “does not have a tradition of backstabbing our mentors”. Here’s The Online Citizen gleefully proving him wrong.

Also, someone on Facebook reminded us all of the time when he carried out a cat holocaust in 2003. Maybe the Cooling-off Day slip-up was the least of his troubles after all. 
 

 

Dear Vivian, You may have forgotten us but we have not forgotten you. There was one morning in May 2003 when animal…

Posted by Nicole Ling on Thursday, 10 September 2015

Photo: Facebook



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