UNITED
NATIONS, June
22 --
Propaganda is
a concept
usually
attributed to
states, but
the United
Nations, a
club of
states,
engaged in it
too.
A
recently-begun
review of UN
system social
media activity
finds waste
and
contradictions,
often an
online echo
chamber in
which people
who are being
paid to appear
to be cutting
edge back each
other up but
don't answer
questions from
the outside.
Take
as one example
the UN
“Information
Center” or
UNIC in Dar Es
Salaam,
Tanzania --
while the
whole purpose
of its Twitter
account is
presumably to
inform the
public, the
account is
locked:
you have to
apply and be
accepted to
see what this
UNIC is
tweeting.
Then
there's the
UNIC in
Khartoum,
which tweeted
a report
blaming the
SPLM-North
rebels for
killing a UN
peacekeeping,
something
the UN in New
York has been
unwilling to
do despite two
requests
from Inner
City Press.
but UNIC
Khartoum did
not respond to
a question
about its
tweet,
from the Free
UN Coalition
for Access,
@FUNCA_info.
Likewise
after
the UN
responded to a
FUNCA and
Inner City
Press question
about the
carbon
footprint of
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
travels by
saying it
didn't have
that
particular
number,
the same
question put
to a UN
Development
Program
official
active on
climate change
has not
resulted in
any disclosure
by him, either: @OlavKjorven
At
headquarters,
one of the UN
system's
“gurus” of
social media,
also
paradoxically
in charge of
media
accreditation,
unilaterally
blocked
on Twitter
Inner City
Press, which
covers the UN.
Nevertheless
this official
contacted
Inner City
Press demanding
an urgent
explanation of
a single tweet
then mentioned
World War Two.
The
official
follows other
members of the
UN press
corps,
including one
on the
Executive
Committee of
UNCA, now
known as the
UN's
Censorship
Alliance who
tweeted
comparing
Bashar al
Assad of Syria
to Hitler.
But no
inquiry was
made. This
UNCA board
member has his
own private
office, the front door
of which is
festooned with
pro-UN
propaganda.
Next
door, Inner
City Press is
under fire for
having on its
door a sign
for
the new Free
UN Coalition
for Access
-- a rule was
passed between
DPI and UNCA
to try to
outlaw all
signs but
UNCA's, and on
January 21 DPI
sought to make
Inner City
Press accept
three media in
a two-desk
office, while
mere feet away
the 2013
president of
UNCA Pamela
Falk has a
private
office, next
to the UNCA
wine cellar
(and club, and
office).
Interestingly,
this
UN system
social media
guru who
blocked Inner
City Press
reached out
and followed
FUNCA_info
even in its
beta phase --
but quickly when
noticed,
unfollowed.
Were ten
questions
tweeted at the
UN too much?
Or is the UN's
UNsocial
media? Watch
this site.
Footnote:
Some
of the energy
behind this
new project
was the
insistent by
some in DPI
that past
plodding forms
of
organization,
such as that
of the
moribund UNCA,
are the only
way.
FUNCA
disagrees, and
notes that
while the UN
pays more and
more people to
ostensibly be
working in the
present if not
the future,
the UN is
stuck in the
past. Blocked
in the past,
we might say.
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