The CIA’s on a mission to get far more social media followers
It’s the “Spy Who ‘Liked’ Me.” The CIA would like to crack the code to
It’s the “Spy Who ‘Liked’ Me.”
The CIA would like to crack the code to Instagram reputation to soften up its shadowy image as part of a quirky new community relations campaign, according to a report Wednesday.
The notoriously restricted-lipped agency is on a mission to achieve extra followers and likes on its social media platforms, which include Twitter and Facebook, in purchase to portray by itself as relatable, Politico documented.
The CIA is ramping up its social media existence, which began in 2014, to support dispel detrimental press and conspiracy theories that have plagued it in recent decades, said Candice Bryant, head of the agency’s social media workforce.
“There’s people who don’t notice that we have a softer facet here,” explained Bryant, 37. ”So our audience is genuinely the entirety of the American general public.”
“[The goal is] demystify, educate, and then recruit,” she stated.
Modern Instagram posts from the CIA include the graphic of a gay pleasure flag together with captions stressing the value of retaining brokers with “every cultural and linguistic qualifications.” They also include things like to start with-human being stories from CIA workers with hashtags such as #humansofCIA and #womencrushwednesday.
But the endeavours to present the CIA as “just like us” have drawn criticism from observers, some of whom say will make the company look weak — or guilty of whitewashing its personal heritage, in accordance to the outlet.
The company now has 398,000 followers Instagram, 60,000 YouTube, 993,000 likes on Fb and 3.2 million followers on Twitter.
But with TikTok, “obviously, there’s the Chinese hazard,” a rep for the company mentioned.
In June, former TikTok personnel expressed concern that the well-liked social media platform is remaining run by its Chinese parent corporation, ByteDance, and claimed it has obtain to US consumer data, CNBC claimed.