President To Launch Twitter Account For Free Dialog With Public

Jakarta, April 12 (Antara) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has decided to launch a personal twitter account in an effort to involve himself as a common citizen in free dialogs with the public, one of his special staffs said. "This is part of his personality as a democrat who is involved in building citizenship," Presidential Special Staff for Political Communications Affairs Daniel Sparingga said here on Friday. It was reported earlier that President Yudhoyono would soon launch his personal twitter account to come closer to and to interact intensively with the public. Daniel said that the president had decided to become part of the common citizens in deepening and giving more substance to true democracy and as part of building trust and cooperation among the Indonesian people and the international community. "His decision (to open a twitter account) is in line with his desire to expand his public communications in the rest of his administration," Daniel said. Through the twitter account approach, Daniel said, the president could also increase the effectiveness of his political leadership in navigating his government. "I am confident that the decisions of the world leaders to join the cyber world are motivated by the conviction of the importance of social media as a public room which is strategic in forming public opinion," the presidential staff said adding that Yudhoyono is not the first world leader who owns a twitter account. In view of the fact that social and political life has changed drastically due to information technology, leaders should adjust themselves to the changing conditions so that they would be able to keep abreast of realities, he said. He said that disconnection with realities was a nightmare President Yudhoyono was willing to avoid. "Receiving sharp criticism from followers is part of the efforts to preserve the connection with the public. The president will accept all of the consequence, including the worst one. He has to answer all of the babbles, ranging from the funny but irrelevant chatters to extreme cynicism," Daniel said. On Wednesday, Presidential Spokesman Julian Aldrin Pasha said that Yudhoyono wanted his own account to add another communication channel for the people. "The president will manage the account himself," said Julian, who declined to disclose the name of the account or when the account would be launched. "The tweets will be directly from him. There will be a team [who helps] manage the account but every time the tweet comes from the president, there will be a special code to let people know it is from him." He added that the president understood the risks of having a personal social media account. "He is aware of the critics in the social media. The consequences have been thought thoroughly. He is willing to respond to the dynamics in Twitter that sometimes there is information not based on the real facts," he explained.