The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has officially launched itself into the Twitterverse and they did it in such a crazy cool way that it’s hard to believe it’s really the CIA. The account is confirmed, however, so yeah, it’s legit.
We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.
— CIA (@CIA) June 6, 2014
With 237,122 re-tweets and counting, we can definitely say that they won the internet today.
The Washington Post explains the Tweet:
The “neither confirm nor deny” language is a play on “Glomar’ response — a deflection journalists are used to receiving when they inquire about potentially classified information. The phrase has its roots in an CIA effort to salvage a sunken Soviet submarine, as recounted in?this excellent episode?of Radiolab.
The agency has followed up the original Tweet with this:
Thank you for the @Twitter welcome! We look forward to sharing great #unclassified content with you.
— CIA (@CIA) June 7, 2014
The Twitter Government and Politics team is now hailing the first CIA Tweet with the famed #BestPractice hashtag.
#BestPractice: be creative with your first Tweet. The @CIA joined Twitter today with a sense humor https://t.co/fA601ymerA
— Twitter Government (@gov) June 6, 2014
For an agency (and for that matter, a government) that is usually dry and humorless, this was over-the-top awesome.
Watch this video to see other government departments first tweets:
Tiffany Willis is the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with ?the least of these? and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. She’s passionate about their struggles. To stay on top of topics she discusses,?like her?Facebook page,?follow her on Twitter, or?connect with her via LinkedIn. She also has?a?grossly neglected personal blog?and a?literary quotes blog that is a labor of love. Find her somewhere and join the discussion.
