The Washington Post put together an interesting map using data from the Digital Policy Council’s December report about tweeting by world leaders.
The map shows nearly every leader tweets throughout North and South America but adoption of the social networking site is lighter among European, Asian and African leaders.
The report claims 75 percent of world leaders now tweet but those numbers are a little fuzzy because the list includes some heads of state whose roles are largely ceremonial. Some of the leader’s accounts are managed by assistants rather than by the leaders themselves.
President Obama is the most followed world leader with about 24.6 million followers when the report was published. The president -- who is a leading tweeter, not just a tweeting leader -- has grown his base to 25.6 million followers since then.
Venezuela’s bombastic president Hugo Chavez ranks second with roughly 3.9 million followers, though his followers may be after something more than just the president’s revolutionary rhetoric.
Joseph Marks
Joseph Marks covers government technology issues, social media, Gov 2.0 and global Internet freedom for Nextgov. He previously reported on federal litigation and legal policy for Law360 and on local, state and regional issues for two Midwestern newspapers. He also interned for Congressional Quarterly’s Homeland Security section and the Associated Press’s Jerusalem Bureau. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s in international affairs from Georgetown.
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