A year after the State Department opened a data center in the Middle East aimed at countering Islamic State’s online messaging, the U.S. plans to inaugurate a similar outpost in Malaysia in coming months. Like its counterpart in the United Arab Emirates, the new center will seek to undermine the terrorist group’s digital recruitment and propaganda efforts

Last week, as news of Brexit broke, foreign ministries throughout the world took to social media to comment on the UK’s decision to leave the EU. The German foreign ministry responded by changing its Twitter profile picture/cover photo from an image of the foreign minister to the EU flag. [...] An intriguing question is how do MFAs use their Twitter profile pictures/cover photos. Are these used to promote the national brand, or to project a certain institutional image or perhaps to make political statements as was the case with the Germany’s foreign ministry?

New Zealand diplomats remain "sceptical of megaphone diplomacy'' but are increasingly making use of social media, although not in an "indiscriminate'' way. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade chief executive Dr Brook Barrington made that point in Dunedin yesterday in an opening address to more than 100 people, at the University of Otago's 51st annual foreign policy school. Dr Barrington's address was devoted to "The Art of Diplomacy in a Digital World''.

Led by Rep. John Lewis of Georgia, the Representatives sat down on the chamber floor, chanting “No bill, no break,” and calling for a vote. The beginning of the dramatic protest was captured on C-SPAN’s livestream, but then the video cut out. House Republicans had called a recess, triggering the shutdown of the cameras C-SPAN uses in its broadcasts, effectively cutting off public access to the protest. However, Representatives quickly turned to Periscope and Facebook Live to stream their own video.

Finding that the curse of unsupervised hate speech is rampant on the web and leads to terrorism, social media moguls Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube have joined in signing a “Code of Conduct”. The document, produced by the European Commission (EC), states that these mega companies will dedicate manpower and algorithms to remove “illegal hate speech” within 24 hours.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi remained intact in the list of top 10 leaders in the world with the most Twitter followers, it was the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj who broke into the list for the first time, an annual global Twitter ranking has revealed. [...] "@SushmaSwaraj is the most followed female world leader with 5 million followers at 10th spot