Russian President Says Authorities Shouldn't Act On Every Top Twitter Trend
RIA-Novosti - 4.19.12 - JRL 2012-73

St Petersburg, 19 April: The authorities should react to those high-profile events which have serious, resonant significance for society and not to all those that end up in the top news stories, Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev believes.
"To believe that the appearance of some topic or other in the (Twitter) hashtags is grounds for immediately removing some bosses or to give immediate explanations through a press service, or something else, is probably not fully obvious. But on the other hand, it is not necessary to ignore it. The issue is which topic enters the most discussed issues. There are very high-profile ones - then the authorities should react to them - and there are absolutely absurd ones," Medvedev said at a meeting on problems of school education in St Petersburg.

As an example, Medvedev cited the recent incident when information appeared and instantly spread across social networks that his cat Dorofey had disappeared.

"Some time ago, information appeared in the hashtags that my cat had escaped. Then it turned out that he had not escaped. This was all ascertained in the course of day. This was news No. 1 and after this what changed in our lives? Absolutely nothing!" the president said.

Keywords: Russia, Media, Internet, Twitter - Russia, Government, Politics - Russian News - Russia

St Petersburg, 19 April: The authorities should react to those high-profile events which have serious, resonant significance for society and not to all those that end up in the top news stories, Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev believes.

"To believe that the appearance of some topic or other in the (Twitter) hashtags is grounds for immediately removing some bosses or to give immediate explanations through a press service, or something else, is probably not fully obvious. But on the other hand, it is not necessary to ignore it. The issue is which topic enters the most discussed issues. There are very high-profile ones - then the authorities should react to them - and there are absolutely absurd ones," Medvedev said at a meeting on problems of school education in St Petersburg.

As an example, Medvedev cited the recent incident when information appeared and instantly spread across social networks that his cat Dorofey had disappeared.

"Some time ago, information appeared in the hashtags that my cat had escaped. Then it turned out that he had not escaped. This was all ascertained in the course of day. This was news No. 1 and after this what changed in our lives? Absolutely nothing!" the president said.