WASHINGTON - The secretive US spy agency joined the world of social media Friday, and quickly had the Twitterverse talking.
"We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet," the
Central Intelligence Agency quipped on its newly minted official
Twitter page.
Within two hours of the post, it received around 90,000 retweets and the CIA counted 115,000 followers.
The Twitter Government and Politics team welcomed the posting with a
#BestPractice hashtag for being "creative with your first tweet."
The CIA seal
CIA director John Brennan said in a statement that the new Twitter
and Facebook accounts aimed to help the agency "more directly engage
with the public and provide information on CIA's mission, history and
other developments."
"We have important insights to share," Brennan said.
The agency already had accounts with YouTube and Flickr.
There's little chance the agency will post spy secrets. This was
indicated in its second tweet that said: "Thank you for the @twitter
welcome! We look forward to sharing great #unclassified content with
you."
It plans instead to post its rare press releases, information about
careers within the agency or about historic missions that have since
been declassified.
The agency will also post images of objects on display at the CIA
museum, which it called "the best museum most people never get to see"
-- because it's closed to the public.
On its Twitter profile, the CIA describes itself as "the nation's
first line of defense. We accomplish what others cannot accomplish and
go where others cannot go."
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