It's a truth of warfare in the digital era: Bullets and bombs often are augmented by status updates and tweets.  The bloody conflict taking place in Iraq is no different.

The inspection arm of China’s Communist Party this week took a break from its historic investigation into the country’s corruption problems to highlight abuse of power from a fresh angle: the fictionalized depiction of crooked Washington shown in the television program “House of Cards.”

The advance of an army used to be marked by war drums. Now it’s marked by volleys of tweets.  The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Sunni militant group that seizedIraq’s second-largest city last week and is now pledging to take Baghdad, has honed this new technique—most recently posting photos on Twitter of an alleged mass killing of Iraqi soldiers. 

Backlash is mounting against the vice-president of the Italian senate after he celebrated Italy’s World Cup win over England with a vulgar Twitter outburst calling English people “pretentious pricks”. Maurizio Gasparri, former minister of communications under Silvio Berlusconi and one of the media mogul’s most loyal party faithful, posted a tweet at 2am local time from Salerno, just as Italy’s victory over England was sealed. 

The situation in Iraq has gone from bad to worse. But one app is still available: Whisper, an anonymous secret sharing app often used by adolescents. And young Iraqis have taken to it, sharing their feelings about what's happening in Iraq in the one of the only ways they can. 

Digital behavior, trends, and opportunities can raise awareness of particular issues in a country. This extends well beyond, for example, simply posting a few tweets as a form of diplomacy. According to Ambassador Rudolf Bekink of the Embassy of the Netherlands, “the digital arena opens new possibilities, from one-on-one conversations to dialogues with communities.” Traditional diplomacy is still relevant, he says, “but digital diplomacy adds enormously to the capabilities of every diplomat.” 

Filipinos in the United States can now listen to radio broadcasts from the Philippines on their mobile phones with the launching of the second phase of a public diplomacy initiative to connect them with the motherland. The availability in the US of broadcasts from six leading Filipino radio stations, including the Catholic-run Radio Veritas, was announced by the Philippine Embassy and AudioNow, the world’s leading call-to-listen platform, on the occasion of the 116th anniversary of Philippine independence.

While the international outcry is gratifying in its endorsement of human rights and its outrage at the Islamic jihad and Sharia law, hashtag diplomacy has distinct limitations; it may serve as a starting point provided it doesn’t merely fade away after serving only to vent emotion, and it is no substitute for action.