Twitter becomes trendy with diplomats, heads of state
There's a new trending topic on Twitter: diplomacy. It turns out foreign heads of state have turned to the micro-blogging site to communicate. What has the world come to?
It's already been seen how prevalent Twitter and other forms of social media can be in political arenas. Just look back at the 2008 presidential campaign trail. (And just wait for the next one...) But this is something rather new.
According to a report by the Associated Press, politicians and diplomats around the world are using Twitter as a tool to communicate with each other, not just their constituents. Just look at this one conversation:
When Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt couldn't reach his counterpart in Bahrain by traditional means of communication, he turned to Twitter.
"Trying to get in touch with you on an issue," Bildt tweeted to Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa early Thursday.
At least Bildt exhausted every resource possible to get in touch. It turns out that it worked. Hopefully they sorted everything out over email or phone. It's hard to work on international issues with just 140 characters at a time.
Twitter is becoming more influential in politics stateside as well. President Obama appointed Twitter CEO Dick Costolo to his National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee this week.
So for anyone who still says "Twitter is for twits" and nonsense like that, it's time to give up. If it can bring world leaders together, then we should be all for it.
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