digital diplomacy
Ten years ago today, the Twitter hashtag was born with a very simple tweet. [...] And while Twitter is celebrating today by promoting the rise of popular, non-political hashtags like #FollowFriday, #NowPlaying and #ThrowbackThursday, the hashtag’s most meaningful contribution in the U.S. and abroad has been its ability to rally the internet around more serious ideas and issues.
Through the use of social media, travel platforms like Tastemakers Africa, Everyday Africa, Hip Africa, Visiter L’Afrique and others are giving African travel and tourism a fresh and youthful injection by reimagining the possibilities of African travel for Africans, the African diaspora, and international tourists keen to do something other than seeing the “Big Five” on a game reserve truck or buying rugs in Morocco.
In a week of renewed national attention to organized white supremacy, the music-streaming platform Spotify has removed a number of bands alleged to be associated with neo-Nazism.
Apple, LinkedIn, Spotify and Twitter have joined a growing chorus of technology companies to hit out at the far right and Donald Trump's attempt to put white supremacists and leftwing counter-demonstrators at Saturday’s Charlottesville protest on the same moral plane. [...] Apple also pledged to match two-for-one employee donations to human rights groups until 30 September, and said it would roll out donation systems for the SPLC through its iTunes store.
Read about Africa's foray into space and more in this week's roundup.
U.S. Ambassador Elizabeth Richard joined Prime Minister Hariri on Thursday to launch the Diaspora Investment and Development platform, developed with the support of a $1,050,000 grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
This week's headlines look at the role of the internet and social media in public diplomacy.
Sports fans and athletes from Colombia took to social media to criticise the government's plans to slash next year's national sports budget by 60 percent. [...] Thousands of Colombians have started an online campaign called #NoRecuertenMisSuenos (Don't Slash My Dreams), extolling their country's athletes and calling on the government to reverse its decision.