British foreign secretary William Hague took this a step further earlier this month, meeting five of his 109,000 Twitter followers to discuss Somalia, Europe and other issues in an effort to bring online interaction offline.
But for all its immediacy and accessibility, social media is a minefield where a misplaced comment can generate a whirlwind of controversy as fast as it takes to type 140 characters — the length limit for tweets.
Linda Sobeh Ali, the Palestinian representative to Canada, was recalled in October 2011 after she retweeted a video of a Palestinian girl reciting a poem that begins innocently enough, but later mentions “destroying Zionism”.
Social networks have also been used as platforms for public fighting matches.
In May, US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul was severely rebuked on Twitter by Moscow about a speech he made on US-Russia ties.
Netizens watched with amusement as the Russian foreign ministry fired off nine consecutive tweets blasting McFaul, who was eventually forced to post a link to a blog post clarifying the message he had intended to get across.
Giuseppe Manzo, spokesman for Italy’s social media-savvy foreign ministry, acknowledged the risks involved.
“The outreach you achieve with social media is much greater — and thus the risks — but we’re still going through an adaptation process,” he said.
“I believe it’s indispensable to engage with the world out there… Why not exploit tools like social media networks to help us? That said, I believe traditional diplomacy remains key.”
But Deruda said it was also crucial for governments to act on this engagement.
“If you start a conversation and I tell you what I think about your policies, or about your image, your leaders… and then I see you don’t change anything, the dialogue is doomed to end,” he said.
“This is a key point for the future of digital diplomacy.”
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