The German parliament's committee of experts, the Bundestag, met last week to analyse the causes of a political and media scandal 2.0, the so-called "Twittergate", which consisted of parliamentarians leaking the results of the vote for the re-election of Horst Köhler as president of the republic to the microblogging network, 15 minutes before they were officially announced.
The leaks came from two Christian Democrat 99 acres data parliamentarians, Julia Klöckner, who announced the success of the vote for her party, Angela Merkel's and Köhler's organisation, and Ulrich Kelber, who posted the number of votes his candidate received online.
This breach of protocol irritated many parliamentarians, who pointed out that only the President of the Bundestag has the constitutional right to announce the new head of state and that such behaviour undermined the dignity of the institution.
Other parliamentarians were less rigid and pointed out that the final of the country's football league was being played in the face of the suspense of who would be the next president of the republic, so the messages posted on Twitter were intended to calm citizens' political uncertainty so they could concentrate on football.