The Democratic Party is preparing a digital platform that essentially looks like an attempt to copy the practices that the Socialist Party and Edi Rama have used for years. The DP Working Group has a scoring and evaluation system ready for party officials based on their engagement on social media, which it will present on Thursday, August 27, at the National Council.
The new platform aims to monitor the online activity of all DP officials and evaluate them with points. There will be a unique “message of the day”, which should be distributed equally by MPs, the Presidency, the National Council and the heads of branches. The goal is real-time communication of the chairman’s positions, faster access to lists and information for members and supporters. The platform was also designed with the support of the International Republican Institute.
But this model is not new. It has been operating in the Socialist Party for a long time, although not always in an open and formalized form.
Edi Rama and the SP have been using the “Aktivist” application for years, where members and activists earned points by liking and sharing party content, while being ranked according to their engagement. In internal meetings, Rama has repeatedly asked MPs to increase their activity on Facebook, Instagram and X, especially in periods of tension, describing the situation as “cyberwar”. Independent investigations have documented WhatsApp groups where posts were posted for sharing, with warnings when someone was not active enough – a clear form of monitoring and evaluation.
The main difference is that in the SP the system is built around the figure of the leader and often relies on the network of the administration, while the DP is trying to formalize it as an internal party instrument. Only in the DP as well as in the SP the party and the leader are the same thing. Instead of building something new, the Democrats are adopting the logic that the Socialists have long tested: message control, communication unification and digital engagement measurement.
In other words, after criticizing it for years as “propaganda” and “digital control”, the DP is now copying it.
