Just last month Hugo Chávez started tweeting:
Now his rise in popularity (Noticias 24’s headline spreads the snark with “Chávez enjoys meteoric popularity… on Tweeter”) has him with 250,000 followers (as of the writing of this post).
So, what’s a petty tyrant to do? Hire 200 of his BFFs to manage the Twitter account:
Since then, Chavez says, he has been overwhelmed by nearly 54,000 messages from supporters, critics and people writing to ask for help with a problem or lodge a complaint. On Thursday, he announced that a new team of 200 aides would help him manage the stream.
“I’m creating a team due to the avalanche of requests, and some grievances,” he said.
Opposition lawmaker Juan Jose Molina said he was not surprised by Chavez’s ability to attract a crowd in cyberspace, but he thinks the president should spend less time tweeting and more time working to reduce soaring inflation and violent crime.
“Nobody can deny that Chavez has leadership. But it’s also true that nobody can deny his inability to govern,” Molina said.
And, by the way, he tweets from a BlackBerry, which he has referred to as a “secret weapon.”
Can’t wait until one of the 200 aides will leak the passwords and really turn that BlackBerry into a secret weapon.
Meanwhile, here in the US of A,
Obama bemoans ‘diversions’ of IPod, Xbox era (hat tip Roger):
US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.
