Editing Text messaging (section)

=== In politics ===
{{see also|Political text messaging}}
[[File:Threatening text - Flickr - Al Jazeera English.jpg|thumb|A text message that (he says) promises 500 [[Libyan dinar]]s ($400) to anyone who "makes noise" in support of [[Gaddafi]] in the coming days]]
[[File:Sms.jpg|thumb|A recruitment ban in French [[SMS language]]: «Slt koi29 on é jamé 2tro @ s batre pour la P. ;-)» = «''Salut! Quoi de neuf? On n'est jamais de trop à se battre pour la Paix!''»]]

Text messaging has affected the political world. American campaigns find that text messaging is a much easier, cheaper way of getting to the voters than the door-to-door approach.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/02/news/net.php|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060908033104/http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/02/news/net.php|archive-date=8 September 2006 |url-status=dead |title=In politics, blogs and text messages are the new American way |newspaper=[[International Herald Tribune]] |first=Adam |last=Nagourney |author-link=Adam Nagourney |date=29 March 2009 |access-date=29 March 2012}}</ref> In 2006 Mexico's then president-elect [[Felipe Calderón]] launched millions of text messages in the days immediately preceding his narrow win over [[Andrés Manuel López Obrador]].<ref name="autogenerated2">{{cite web|url=http://www.newsweek.com/id/46675?tid=relatedcl |title=Text Messaging in U.S. Politics |work=Newsweek |date=1 August 2006 |access-date=29 March 2012}}</ref> In January 2001, Joseph Estrada was forced to resign from the post of president of the Philippines. The popular campaign against him was widely reported to have been coordinated with SMS chain letters.<ref name="autogenerated2" /> A massive texting campaign was credited with boosting youth turnout in Spain's 2004 parliamentary elections.<ref name="autogenerated2" /> In 2008, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his chief of staff at the time became entangled in a sex scandal stemming from the exchange of over 14,000 text messages that eventually led to his forced resignation, the conviction of perjury, and other charges.<ref name="huliq1"/>
Text messaging has been used to turn down other political leaders. During the 2004 U.S. Democratic and Republican National Conventions, protesters used an SMS-based organizing tool called TXTmob to get to opponents.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.txtmob.com/ |title=TxtMob |publisher=TxtMob |access-date=29 March 2012}}</ref> In the last day before the 2004 presidential elections in Romania, a message against [[Adrian Năstase]] was largely circulated, thus breaking the laws that prohibited campaigning that day. Text messaging has helped politics by promoting campaigns.

On 20 January 2001, President [[Joseph Estrada]] of the Philippines became the first head of state in history to lose power to a [[smart mob]].<ref name="Rheingold, Howard 2002">Rheingold, Howard (2002) Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, Perseus, Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. xi–xxii, 157–82 {{ISBN|0-7382-0861-2}}.</ref> More than one million Manila residents assembled at the site of the 1986 [[People Power Revolution|People Power]] peaceful demonstrations that have toppled the Marcos regime. These people have organized themselves and coordinated their actions through text messaging. They were able to bring down a government without having to use any weapons or violence. Through text messaging, their plans and ideas were communicated to others and successfully implemented. Also, this move encouraged the military to withdraw their support from the regime, and as a result, the Estrada government fell.<ref name="Rheingold, Howard 2002"/> People were able to converge and unite with the use of their cell phones. "The rapid assembly of the anti-Estrada crowd was a hallmark of early [[smart mob]] technology, and the millions of text messages exchanged by the demonstrators in 2001 was, by all accounts, a key to the crowds [[esprit de corps]]."<ref name="Rheingold, Howard 2002"/>