Thursday

7th Dec 2023

Rem@rk@ble

Make Twiplomacy boring again

  • We may sometimes sigh in quiet desperation about EU leaders’ boring tweets on meetings and handshakes. But politics is serious and boring. (Photo: European Commission (collage by EUobserver))

Even if you're not on Twitter, you will have seen at least some of US president-elect Donald Trump's tweets. They make headlines all over the world, causing diplomatic incidents, stock losses and calls for Twitter to suspend Trump's account for inciting fear and hate.

For Putin, the controversies over Trump's tweets likely come as a welcome distraction from his appalling practices in Aleppo. As his parody @DarthPutinKGB says:

Read and decide

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Although EU commissioner Oettinger parody @GOettinger doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.

We may sometimes sigh in quiet desperation about EU leaders' boring tweets, often stating nothing more than "Today I met X" or "Excellent dialogue with Y" with a picture of a handshake or people sitting at a table.

But you know what? Politics is serious and boring. And from politicians, I prefer boring over inciting, meaningless over sensationalist, precedented over "unpresidented" (as Trump said in a tweet).*

Wishing everyone a boring 2017. And stop retweeting and quoting rubbish – even if it comes from the US president. Or his far-right European buddies.

* Of course meaningful political tweets are even better, but that's for another column.

Author bio

Alice Stollmeyer is a digital advocacy strategist at @StollmeyerEU and a member of EUobserver's board. Her Rem@rk@ble column looks at social media trends about the EU.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author's, not those of EUobserver.

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