“We've seen a sharp decline in the volume of ISIL messaging and social media,” said Richard Stengel, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs during a September 25, 2015,interview with the Voice of America’s Pamela Dockins.  “I think the scales are shifting.”

The newspapers are packed with front page, head line stories of Prime Minister’s recent and successful visit to the West Coast of United States, where he professed his firm belief in ‘social media’ as the apt medium of the hour to connect people, build communities, local and global. 

In 2010 former Lowy Institute research fellow Fergus Hanson published a forward-looking policy brief urging Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to catch up to the rest of the world, join the 21st century and get online. Social media, he argued, is only one aspect of digital diplomacy. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Mark Zuckerberg that social media can show governments where they’re going wrong, and allow heads of state to connect more personably than ever before. During a townhall Q&A at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters, the two leaders talked about the modernization of India and discussed topics from the 40,000 questions and comments submitted by the public. 

Sydneysider Nicola Gray uses a new online photography project to introduce her Facebook audience to an Australian refugee—a “New Human of Australia”—every few days.

I [Giorgos Moutafis] have documented violence, despair and helplessness with my lens more times than I can possibly remember. But I have honestly never seen anything like that before: terrified and beleaguered people trying to cross the borders, children screaming and crying and families being separated between the two countries. 

Activist and technologist Hera Hussain runs workshops for a global network of social entrepreneurs known as MakeSense and, as the founder of advocacy group Chayn—an open-source project that leverages technology to empower women against violence and oppression so they can live happier and healthier lives—spends a great deal of her time working on issues at the intersection of tech and gender.

The rapid acceleration of digital technologies has been rupturing the conservative profession of diplomacy for the better part of a decade [...] Without deft digital diplomacy, Australia leaves itself unable to respond to the risks that [their] citizens and exporters increasingly face overseas.