Twitter diplomacy

US President Barack Obama started a Twitter account in 2007, which gave impetus to the development of digital diplomacy on the social network Twitter. The concept of TweetPathy became relevant after the creation of Twitter accounts in 2010 by such state leaders as Dmitry Medvedev , Hugo Chavez , Alvaro Uribe , Rafael Correa , Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner , thereby confirming the role of Twitter as a platform for the immediate dissemination of information and political interaction. For the first time, the term Tweetplatia was proposed by Matthias Lufkens, who studied diplomacy on social networks, in 2011. He presented a report where it was noted that Twitter is used by presidents and leaders of states as a tool for maintaining international contacts with other political figures. On October 17, 2012, Matthias Lufkens published an article according to which 82 foreign ministries and 47 foreign ministers had a Twitter account ^[1] . In the future, Twitter is seen as a platform that can establish dialogue with the public. Giulio Terzi , a former Italian foreign minister, said:

“Twitter has 2 big positive effects in foreign policy: it promotes the exchange of useful ideas among politicians and civil society and increases the ability of diplomats to collect information and to anticipate events, analyze, manage and respond to them.” ^[2]

One of the first politicians who started using Twitter for diplomatic purposes was the American ambassador to Russia, Michael E. McFaul , which allowed citizens to follow the development of Russian-American relations .

By 2018, 97% of UN member states are registered on Twitter, only 6 countries - Laos , Mauritania , Nicaragua , North Korea , Swaziland and Turkmenistan - have not yet created a social network account ^[3] .

Since 2007, Barack Obama has been maintaining a Twitter account, which in 2018 has more than 100 million readers.

A real breakthrough in the tweet event was made by Donald Trump after he assumed the presidency of the United States in January 2017 . Over the year, his publications were retweeted an average of 20 thousand times. Sometimes Donald Trump’s non-diplomatic publications confuse the governments of many countries, for example, with respect to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Donald Trump used the expression “little rocket man” ^[4] . The US president uses his personal account for political statements more often than the official account. A feature of his Twitter profile is the transition to a personal attitude, appeal to politicians, and not to state governments. Donald Trump urged Theresa May to focus on “radical Islamic terrorism in the UK ” after the United Kingdom disagreed with posting British ultra-right organizations in the president’s profile: “Theresa May, focus not on me, but on radical Islamic terrorism in the UK. Everything is pretty good with us! ” ^[5]

A considerable number of tweets regarding Russia are published in the president’s profile, so only on April 11 for 3 hours 3 posts were posted in the account, where Donald Trump provokes Russia and calls for cooperation. At 13:57, a record appears in the president’s account: “ Russia promises to shoot down any missiles fired over Syria. Get ready, Russia, they will fly. They will be good, new and “smart”! No need to support an animal that kills its citizens with gas and enjoys it! ” ^[6] . An hour later, Donald Trump makes an attempt to establish cooperation: “Our relations with Russia are now worse than ever, including during the Cold War. There is no reason for that. Russia needs us to help them with the economy, which will be quite simple, but we need all countries to work together. Stop the arms race? ” ^[7] . Later, another entry was published, addressed to Russia: “For the most part, hostility with Russia is caused by a fake and corrupt“ Russian investigation ”, in which the tone is set by loyal Democrats or those who once worked for Obama , Muller is the most controversial of all (except for Rosenstein , who signed the document on FISA and the letter on Komi ). There is no conspiracy, so they go crazy! ” ^[7] .

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth of Great Britain has created a Twitter account in order to disseminate information not only from accounts of diplomatic missions abroad , but also from accounts of departments of the head office. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has over 250 Twitter accounts at its disposal.

The British Foreign Ministry leads an active social life: between February and June 2012, 1221 trits were published, which according to the contents can be divided into 3 categories ^[8] :

• Informational (meaning statements on political initiatives, coverage of the minister’s visits)
• Representative (covering cooperation with non-state actors)
• Friendly (contribute to the development of friendly relations between the ministry and the public audience or between the ministry and other states)

Most of the tweets, namely 91% published during this period, were informational, thus confirming that the publication of information has gone digital. 2% of publications could be attributed to representative tweets, and 7% to friendly ones. ^[eight]

In addition, the official account of the Ministry actively distributes tweets published from accounts of subordinate departments (72% of publications are retweets). But the information published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Commonwealth of Nations was widely used by other profiles: UK government departments shared 49% of tweets.

Dmitry Medvedev signed up for Twitter in 2010 during a visit to the United States and meeting with Steve Jobs . Not only the heads of other states subscribed to his account, but also some journalists who became famous due to criticism towards the government. Following the example of Medvedev, some of his assistants, for example Arkady Dvorkovich , whose Twitter account in 2018 signed up for more than 650 thousand readers, registered on social networks.

The official profile of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia on Twitter has signed up more than 196 thousand readers. The content of their profile is both information on domestic and foreign policy events. The Russian Foreign Ministry covered the actions of the Russian armed forces during the Syrian campaign from different points of view: Russia demonstrated diplomatic attempts to resolve the Syrian conflict, informing about bilateral meetings with the heads of state: “ Lavrov and Kerry discussed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict , the situation in Syria , Libya and Yemen "," Lavrov and Ban Ki-moon discussed the situation in Syria and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa " ^[9] . The Russian Foreign Ministry also reports on the provision of humanitarian assistance to Syria.

The Twitter platform is also widely used among the diplomatic missions of Russia abroad. Russian embassies use social networks to inform users about their positions regarding certain issues, providing them with space for criticism and discussion. The English-language account of the Russian Embassy in the UK on Twitter, whose publications are aimed at a foreign audience, as well as at the media, has more than 80 thousand subscribers. 39% of the subscribers of their English-language account live in the UK , 15% in the United States , 4% in Russia . The Embassy’s channel in Russian is aimed at informing the Russian-speaking audience and has about 7 thousand subscribers.

The Russian Embassy in the UK has repeatedly attracted public attention thanks to its tweets. The most popular publication was a post that appeared in 2016 as a reaction of the diplomatic mission to the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the United States after the United States accused Russia of interfering in the elections. The embassy published an image of a duckling, on top of which was placed the word lame ("lame") ^[10] . The term “ Lame Duck ” is used to refer to a president whose powers are nearing an end. The post was retweeted by 20 thousand Twitter users, in addition, the publication was heatedly discussed by international media . The resonance was made by the embassy's publication in May 2017, which became a commentary on the accusation of the British Prime Minister against the European Union of interfering in the general election in the UK. The post “Thank God this time is not Russia” received more than 8 thousand reposts and 11 thousand likes.

The first known case of using bots and trolls in Russia on Twitter was recorded during the presidency of Medvedev. The pro-government youth movements acted as trolls. The task of bots that can be easily identified by such signs: the lack of photos, names similar in content to publications, is to distribute troll publications. During the Ukrainian crisis, Russia was actively used by Twitter bots and trolls. New York University conducted a study in which it was found that between February 2014 and December 2015, more than 14 million tweets were published from 1.3 million different accounts affecting Russian policy regarding Crimea. The study showed that among all accounts that posted up to 10 tweets, 45% were bots. ^[eleven]

The International Criminal Court , as well as its staff, have Twitter accounts. The ICC's Twitter account was created in 2009 and is maintained in 2 official languages ​​- English and French . Tweets are devoted to updated information in the case with reference to relevant documents and video procedures, the distribution of new important reports, videos and official statements by senior officials of the International Criminal Court. In 2018, more than 305 thousand readers signed up for the account, including accounts of foreign ministries, UN officials, journalists and other interested parties. ^[12]

Michael Oren : “Twitter is another tool that helps me communicate with other diplomats and journalists, and also allows me to add an individual touch to my political views.”

HCF representatives: “Twitter will not be a substitute for diplomacy. This is madness! If someone thinks that 140 characters is a diplomatic solution to world problems, then we have a big problem. Twitter really wasn’t created for Tweet and wasn’t even created for conversations. ”

Dmitry Peskov : “We are not participants in Twitter diplomacy. We are committed to serious approaches. ”

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• Torrealba Alfredo A. Tweetplatomy: the impact of the Twitter social network on diplomacy // Bulletin of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. Series: International Relations, 2015