A new study indicates that representatives of two thirds of the nations of the world are on Twitter. Not that it’s exactly a chatty place among the world leaders, according to the Washington Post:
The researchers believe that just 30 of them have ever done their own tweeting — while even fewer do it on a regular basis — but altogether the Twittering leaders have sent more than 350,000 tweets to almost 52 million followers, the study shows.
About a third of them don’t follow each other, and dozens of them — like Russian President Vladimir Putin, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte — don’t follow any other Twitterers.
Still, a few reply to followers and engage in conversations. More than 90% of the tweets of Ugandan Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi are responses to things that other people have tweeted to him.
It’s kind of a tightrope situation, when you think about it. Generally, a country’s leaders statements are carefully prepared and strategized, even the seemingly ad-lib ones. Twitter lends itself to impulse and, if you’re not careful, hotheadedness.
Still, some people are having fun with it:
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves tweeted for the first time on May 15, saying: “Help! I’m being followed;-),”
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