CIA on Twitter
They've been following you your whole life - but have finally joined Twitter
Monday saw the CIA’s one month Twitterversary; to celebrate they held a Q&A session with followers and the head of social media at the agency seems to have a pretty good sense of humour.Clearly questions on the recent drone strikes in Pakistan and torture programmes were avoided, opting for more light-hearted interactions more in line with the organisation’s first tweet from a month ago: ‘We cannot neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet’. This introduction to social media was greeted with wry smiles and raised eyebrows, having been retweeted over 300,000 times and favourited by 190,000 people. The phrase is a knowing nod to controversy in 1976 when the CIA refused to acknowledge the existence of a project to raise a sunken Soviet Union submarine from the Pacific Ocean.
This week’s Q&A suggested a selfie with talk show host Ellen Degeneres, the popular hashtag #sorrynotsorry and a coy quip about deceased rapper Tupac Shakur.
The agency is already on Facebook, Flickr and YouTube and a statement on their website urged the public to get involved on Twitter too ‘for the latest CIA updates, #tbt photos, reflections on intelligence history and fun facts from the CIA World Factbook’. The moves come as part of a larger online overhaul which will include event livetreaming, presumably utilising social media in an effort to improve public relations, openness and garner a more trustworthy and accessible reputation.
Understandably though, not everyone’s impressed with the social media launch as Amnesty International called for the agency to put more time into law abiding than tweeting.
Below are some of the best Twitter reactions to the CIA's announcement:
Recent graduate and now interning as content editor, when she's not
writing articles Katie can quite likely be found festival-ing,
holiday-ing or reading a book (dedicated English student that she is). Follow her @KatieAtSMF.
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CIA on Twitter
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Tuesday, July 08, 2014
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Anonymous
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