If you are asked to imagine the founder of a social network, someone like Mark Zuckerberg might be the first thing to come to mind – the kind of person who starts the project in his dorm room and wears a hoodie to investor meetings.

But over the past couple days, a new social network founder has surfaced: the politician.

Yesterday UK MP Louise Mensch launched Menshn.com, a social network currently only available in the US, which mimics Twitter but allows users to discuss issues by topic.

On the same day, the Guardian reported that the Kremlin is preparing to create a Russian social network to rival Facebook

It goes without saying that these are very different ventures, created for very different reasons.