Sweden hands over Twitter account to its people

Sweden’s Twitter account, @Sweden, has been taken over by ordinary citizens to make it “the world’s most democratic Twitter account”. Each week will see one individual Tweeting about whatever he/she likes.

The citizens to whom the account have been handed to, are chosen if they “represent values, skills, ideas and are passionate about a number of areas”

Jack Werner, the first citizen to take over @Sweden started tweeting on 10 December. On his profile he writes: “After finishing school with questionable grades, I discovered that nobody cared about them anyway. Since then I have been an editor for Lista.se, managed a book club and been a self-employed writer, marketer and lecturer on social media and web culture. Ever since I discovered that nobody takes the latter seriously in Sweden.”

Although the decision was made by the Swedish tourism department, none of the Tweets seem to advertise Sweden as a tourist destination, and there is no filter in terms of what is Tweeted. The account already has 10 000 followers.

The question that emerges is whether or not other countries embrace the @Sweden-style account? It is very possible since it has grabbed global attention. But one thing is for sure, there won’t be any @China or @Russia very soon.