Twitter and French elections

French law prohibits the publication, by the media or any Internet-connected citizen, of voting results or estimates before 8 p.m. on election days in the presidential race. The best-laid plans could not stop Twitter, though, whose users skirted regulations with offbeat code words and communicated tallies ahead of the appointed hour on Sunday.

Example:

. . . [T]he flan was decidedly in the oven, while the tomato was surprisingly green. By the same token — according to Twitter, at any rate — the temperature in Budapest hovered near 25 degrees.

Read the shot article by Scott Sayare in the NYT.