Twittering against communism

Updated 1.00PST to include latest news from the protesters' Twitter feed

I must admit to having the impression that communism really isn't for everybody.

So I will admit to a slight lack of surprise when I hear that anti-communist supporters in Moldova are a little unhappy that recent elections resulted in a victory for Vladimir Voronin's Communist party.

The protesters believe that the election was rigged--the Communist Party seems to have won just enough votes in order to amend the constitution so that President Voronin can govern for a third term.

In order to organize themselves into an effective group, the anti-communists have taken to Twitter.

Using the tag #pman, as many as 20,000 have marched on government buildings and, in some cases, invaded them, causing damage.

In one Twitter posting Tuesday, from chipnt, reads: "Communists take ur dirty hands out of our country! Don't cheat! Don't block sites and communications! Don't block path to our freedom!"

And Tuesday evening Moldovan time, Twitterers were spreading word of an alleged attack on a journalist as well as alleged infiltration of the #pman Twitter feed by the Moldovan secret services.

One Twitterer, dumitruiovu, asked: "Administration of twitter! Can you block access for Moldovan Secret Services IPs? :D"

While some are claiming that Facebook and other social networks have been blocked, any attempts to do the same with Twitter seem to have been unsuccessful.

According to CNN, even opposition politicians seem surprised that the Twitterers could band together so effectively.

The government, however, isn't blaming the microblogging service. It's blaming Romania. "Romania is involved in everything that has happened," the RIA-Novosti news agency reported President Voronin as declaring. He added: "Patience also has its limits."

It will be interesting to see just whose patience will reach its limits sooner. And if we will hear about it first on Twitter.