Social media and diplomacy are growing enmeshed — shall we call it Twitterplomacy? Tweetoplomacy? — with the U.S. State Department in recent days launching Twitter feeds in Arabic and Farsi, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today announcing more to follow in Chinese, Hindi and Russian.
“As you’ve seen, we are making more significant use of social media. It’s a key element of our plan to – and our strategy to engage people-to-people around the world,” State Dept. Spokesman Philip Crowley said in his daily media briefing on Monday. “As the Secretary has made clear, we do engage governments, but we also want to engage people directly. And as we use social media, we’re also employing – using languages in key parts of the world. So last week we began Tweeting in Arabic, and this week we begin Tweeting in Farsi.”
As of mid-day today, @USAdarFarsi had 3,340 followers and had been added to 81 lists; @USAbilAraby had 1,236 followers and was on 61 lists.
The theme of the first tweets from each: “We want to be part of your conversations.”
Judith McHale, undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs, told USAToday.com. “There is a real, vibrant and compelling conversation going on now around the globe. It is a conversation increasingly taking place on the Internet, and America wants to be a part of it. We are keen to reach out to people where they spend their time online to listen, to present U.S. views and values, and to engage as we work to advance a better and more prosperous future.”
In a an “impassioned speech on Internet freedom” today at George Washington University, Clinton declared the U.S. “stands with cyber dissidents and democracy activists from the Middle East to China and beyond,” the Associated Press reported. (Full text of speech).
Clinton said $25 million will be spent this year “on initiatives designed to protect bloggers and help them get around curbs like the Great Firewall of China, the gagging of social media sites in Iran, Cuba, Syria, Vietnam and Myanmar as well as Egypt’s recent unsuccessful attempt to thwart anti-government protests by simply pulling the plug on online communication,” the AP story continued.
Below is one of the State Department’s Tweets in Arabic today about the Clinton speech (translation: “Both Obama and Secretary Clinton give great importance to the freedom of the internet as one of America’s foreign policy.”)
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/USAbilAraby/status/37581580679516160″]
And a tweet in Farsi: (“Obama: The world is changing. In the Middle East with young, dynamic generation, waiting for bigger opportunities.”)
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/USAdarFarsi/status/37584337612451840″]
