“粉丝代替核弹” 美国驻俄大使玩转“数字外交”_时事

“粉丝代替核弹” 美国驻俄大使玩转“数字外交”

美国驻俄大使迈克尔•麦克福尔借助社交媒体、玩转“数字外交“。

For Ambassador Michael McFaul, the unfiltered communication offered by social media means he can tweet U.S. policy, blog it and post it on Facebook, an alternative to the mostly hostile traditional media here.

While Russian Internet use is widespread, the majority of people still get their news from television, so McFaul is unlikely to win the nation’s hearts and minds tweet by tweet. But his use of social media gets him buzz — and a direct line to a new audience.

McFaul tweets, he said in an interview, because Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former U.S. secretary of state who sent him to Moscow two years ago, told him to.

“Her message was that our diplomacy goes beyond meeting with our counterparts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” he said.

McFaul’s reception when he arrived here in January 2017 helped reinforce his boss’s orders. Officially directed anti-Americanismwas on the rise, and television crews, taking cues from the Kremlin, hounded McFaul. They pounced on him when he met with human rights activists. He was accused of giving the activists orders and stirring up revolution.

Time to power up the computer.

Many public officials tweet, but McFaul has been noticed for his willingness to answer questions and get into some give-and-take on Twitter. A few days ago, a tweeter asked if there would ever be war between Russia and the United States. “Never,” he wrote in Russian. That touched off a longer exchange about whether the two countries threatened each other. McFaul argued they faced common threats. Pressed, he tweeted, “al-Qaeda.”