Brazil & Southern Cone - December 2011 (ISSN 1741-4431)

The open challenge on Twitter by the women’s minister Carolina Schmidt Minister to a joke told by President Sebastián Piñera of Chile at a regional summit (see sidebar) has rekindled the debate over the role of social media in politics; specifically, the question as to when a message should be read as a personal comment or an official statement. President Piñera holds to the latter and argued that Schmidt should have considered that before challenging him publicly. He also noted that internal dissent should be discussed behind closed doors and not in the social media, which is equivalent to airing one’s dirty laundry in public.

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