The London 2012 Games have been touted as the first Olympics to live fully in the age of social media. After all, the organization's Twitter feed has nearly 1.4 million followers...But a rash of scandals and news related to Twitter has put a new mark on the face of these games. And, as they say, it ain't pretty.
The Russian Foreign Ministry is planning to open a Facebook page in the near future and has already launched special courses to teach diplomats how to make the most of their Twitter accounts to help promote Russia’s position on the world stage, the report said.
Like any powerful tool, the Internet can be used for both good and evil, by citizens and governments alike. It is so powerful that the US State Department is actively tapping social media for public diplomacy. Just check out “It’s me, Kristie” – the blog of Kristie Kenney, the former US ambassador to Manila who’s now assigned in Bangkok.
She said that rumors in South Korea that the U.S. was exporting cows infected with mad cow disease spread through SNS, fueling anti-U.S. sentiment and nation-wide protests, and hindering free trade negotiations between the two countries. Esser said in such cases, however, the majority of the online community tends to shout down the extremists, working as a “self-correcting mechanism.”
But this week, some journalists over at the Agence France Presse have put together a neat interactive online tool, called E-Diplomacy, that shows which countries follow which others, how much social discussion is going on between various countries, diplomats, and world thinkers.
Israel's Facebook page in India ranks in top three foreign country pages. The Israel in India Facebook page, launched by the Embassy of Israel in August 2010, has received almost 20,000 'likes', a figure surpassed only by the pages of the US and the UK.
As a prime media tool for a younger-than-ever, interconnected world audience, Facebook is now de rigueur in U.S. foreign policy...While others debate how and when to enter the social media sphere in Zimbabwe, the White House announced the nomination of Ambassador Ray’s successor, due here later this year.
Facebook is Zimbabwe’s top website. According to Google, Facebook was the most popular web search term among Zimbabweans in 2011, replacing “Zimbabwe,” which led the list in 2010 and 2009. The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s (ZBC) Power FM, despite its antiquated broadcasting studios, fills its popular music programming with trendy young DJs enthusiastically pushing listeners to follow them on the social networking site while quoting recent FB comments.