Former EU Commissioner's Facebook page hacked to send antisemitic posts about Czech presidential candidates

The role of social networking sites and the internet has become a topic of discussion in the Czech Republic 14 days prior to the second round of voting in the presidential elections there. The significant electoral success of Karel Schwarzenberg in the first round is said to have been largely due to his online presence.

Schwarzenberg will now face off against Miloš Zeman for the office of the president. The first round results are a reminder not only of the significant influence of these networks, but also of their possibilities for abuse.

To recount just one such case that occurred during the country’s first-ever direct presidential election:  Someone hacked into the Facebook account of Vladimír Špidla, the former prime minister for the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) and a former EU commissioner, in order to make a series of antisemitic, vulgar posts which Špidla erased after approximately one hour. The posts called on readers not to vote either for ČSSD candidate Jiří Dienstbier or for former PM Jan Fischer.

Špidla says he believes the affair should not go unpunished.

"If it will be technically possible at all, I will try to use legal measures to investigate this entire matter. I am convinced that some crimes must not meet with impunity," the former EU Commissioner said.

Špidla erased the contributions after one hour, posted an apology, and stressed that he would do everything in his power to make sure something similar never happens again. In his view the incident shows that some political groups are willing to use dirty methods of all kinds. He has posted to Facebook that his account was abused by "someone from the neo-Nazi scene".

According to the ČSSD’s current Shadow Minister for European Affairs, the antisemitic invective posted against one of the original frontrunners of the election, former PM Jan Fischer, and the insults posted about ČSSD candidate Dienstbier were so "repugnant" that no one intelligent could have considered them to be Špidla’s own words.

This is not the first time a publicly known figure in the Czech Republic has grappled with the misuse of a personal account on the world’s best-known social networking site. In 2011 a Facebook posting led to the definitive departure of Ladislav Bátora, a controversial nationalist, from the Czech Education Ministry. Bátora claimed he had not written the post and that someone had hacked into his account.

Well-known figures in public life often use Facebook as one of their official communications channels. Social networking sites will certainly play a significant role during the second round of the presidential elections, at least as far as Schwarzenberg’s candidacy is concerned.