Ten years ago today, the Twitter hashtag was born with a very simple tweet. [...] And while Twitter is celebrating today by promoting the rise of popular, non-political hashtags like #FollowFriday, #NowPlaying and #ThrowbackThursday, the hashtag’s most meaningful contribution in the U.S. and abroad has been its ability to rally the internet around more serious ideas and issues.

Ministers in the UK are considering creating an internet ombudsman to deal with complaints about hate crimes and are pressing ahead with proposals for a levy on social media companies to help pay for the policing of online offenses. [...] The idea of an internet ombudsman is already being developed in France and Australia. Each country is creating an agency to act as an independent body that will mediate between members of the public and social media firms.

During their visit to Rostov-on-Don, students from China will communicate with their Russian peers on internet media technologies and together they will produce a video clip on the city landscape, which will be broadcast at the opening ceremony of the 2017 China-Russia Media Forum, following the China-Russia Youth Innovation Union.

Crowdsourcing support can become a process where new ideas are mined and become part of a policy package for difficult relationships. [...] It has been said again and again that this is the age of digital diplomacy. For diplomacy to be digital requires, as one ambassador has said, that  “we do things differently and develop new skills – the secrecy and exclusivity of the diplomatic bag no longer applies.