Impostor!

February 27, 2013Posted inDemocracy, Media14 Comments
Impersonating anyone on social media is easy. All that's needed is to create an account using that person's name, photo and other relevant information. And the impersonator is in business. We've seen one person impersonate the prime minister on Twitter. And another person, also on Twitter, has been going around as MP Tshering Penjor. More recently, someone has opened a Facebook page pretending to be me. I don't mind impersonators on social media, especially if their purpose is to expose and make fun of the stupidity and excesses of public officials. This type of satire could generate much-needed laughter,…

Illegal censorship

February 19, 2013Posted inMedia19 Comments
Bhutanomics is a political satire blog set up by "Bhutan analyzers" who are committed to keeping a check on the "ballooning egos of the powerful so that they don’t forget the people are watching." The blog was launched in March, last year. And within no time, they attracted a large and faithful following which seemed to keep growing. Traffic to the blog was so high that the administrators were forced to upgrade and expand their website infrastructure several times. Then, all of a sudden, on 12 January, Bhutanomics went dead. Their website was inaccessible. In fact, users of Tashi's or Samden's ISPs…

Amazing social media

September 20, 2012Posted inGeneral11 Comments
Social media is amazing. Click on a few buttons, like a page, follow a friend, and, voila!, you know everything that's going on around you. To politicians, that knowledge is invaluable. It allows them to hear the people, to listen to them, to feel their pulse. But social media has an even bigger gift for politicians. It facilitates communication. It allows politicians to interact continuously with people, easily and directly. Yes, social media is amazing. That's why I, as a politician, am active on Twitter and Facebook. That's also why I'm on Youtube and Bambuser and Linkedin and Instagram.…

Facebook strikes

June 2, 2011Posted inDemocracy, Justice13 Comments
After several friends suggested it, I’ve added a new page called “News clips”. The idea is to provide links to news articles, especially to critical ones, that talk about what the opposition party and I have been doing. The first link is to a story by Kuensel. It’s about the growing influence of social media in Bhutan, a discussion that took place during the recent Mountain Echoes literary festival. Social media has already made remarkable inroads in Bhutan. In past five years, there’s been a proliferation of discussion forums, social networking sites and blogs. And some of them –…

Social media and politics

May 17, 2011Posted inCulture6 Comments
Mountain Echoes, a literary festival, starts this Friday. The festival, which has already become Thimphu’s biggest annual literary event, will take place at the Tarayana Centre. Please take part in the festival if you are interested in art, literature and culture. It runs through 24th of May and is open to the public. On Monday, 23rd of May, I join Gopilal Acharya, David Davidar and John Elliot to discuss social media in Bhutan. Please join us if you are interested. I’ll be talking about “social media and politics in Bhutan”. So I’m interested in listening to your views: has…

Social media and Bhutan

April 5, 2011Posted inMedia21 Comments
Social media was the subject of Bhutan’s attention on two occasions last month. In one, the Bhutan Centre for Media and Democracy organized a conference to discuss “… the current social media scene in Bhutan and … how this can be used to benefit Bhutanese society.” The conference, which also provided “… a step by step guide to using Twitter and Facebook ...”, took place on 29th and 30th March. In the other, the government issued a circular pointing out that social media sites were “taking a toll on the productivity of the government machinery” and suggesting that social…

Secret agents

January 5, 2011Posted inMedia

Friend or foe?

WikiLeaks: 38 of you said that WikiLeaks promotes transparency and accountability in government; 24 think that it threatens international relations and global security; and 6 readers either had made up their minds or didn’t know about WikiLeaks.
Thank you for taking the poll.
It’s important to think about WikiLeaks. And what the whistle-blowing phenomenon means for Bhutan. Drukpa, a monthly newsmagazine, asked me for my views and published them in their latest issue. My commentary in Drukpa follows:
Opinion over WikiLeaks is sharply divided. The whistle-blowing website has angered many governments. They claim that the indiscriminate release of secret information threatens international relations and global security. And they warn that it endangers the lives of innocent people. So they have aggressively sought to discredit WikiLeaks and its upstart founder, Julian Assange.
But others including journalists, activists and technologists, claim that WikiLeaks makes governments and corporations more transparent and accountable. They herald the organization as a champion of democracy and good government. And anonymous supporters of WikiLeaks have retaliated by attacking the websites of several agencies who have appeared to suppress the organization.