Has anyone seen
the project that Sweden has been doing with its Twitter profile for the last
several months? Each week, the government gives a different citizen a go of
managing the account and, as you might have expected, some amusing tweets have
cropped up over time. In fact, some of the most notable have come from the most
recent user, a lovely girl named Sonja. Let’s sample some of Sonja’s charming
wit…
She also had some
delightful photos to share…
They do look tasty. There's even some
views on religious philosophy…
Profound. You
might be thinking about who would find these tweets funny and who wouldn’t, but
that’s not really what I’m going to ramble on about today. I was wondering, do
you think it’s right to put random citizens in charge of a Twitter page that
represents their entire nation? The Swedish government still thinks so, as they
have decided to continue the project. For a limited time, you can even tweet to
Sonja yourself! Go on, don’t be shy, I’ll be waiting right here.
 |
| Give her a chance |
You’re back? Oh,
you never left. Okay. As I was saying about @sweden…at first I was thinking,
“Yeah, those tweets are pretty out there, but I like the way citizens can
finally voice their opinions louder than the government for once”. I still like
that aspect, and I think that a country deserves to be controlled by its
citizens. But, now I’m not so sure in this particular case when I ask myself what the purpose of
the Twitter account is actually meant to be.
In the end, it’s
not really about freedom, or more specifically, freedom of speech, is it?
Anyone can create their own Twitter account, blog, website, etc. and say
whatever they want. Do they really need the Country Megaphone to do that? (Are
you imagining a giant megaphone right now? I am). And regarding the purpose of
@sweden: I have heard that it’s about the ‘brand’ of Sweden, relating to
touristic appeal. In that case, if it’s for the good of visiting the country or
establishing a certain reputation, I wouldn’t say that it’s the ideal way to
go, despite the entertainment I get from some of the material’s outrageousness.
Maybe I have heard wrong and it’s just an account for random Swedes to get
their 15 minutes of fame and entertain themselves. In that case, why not? At least
that way if someone says something truly horrific, we’ll know who they are and
make sure to avoid them/idolise them.
