The commander in chief will hold his first ever Twitter town hall tomorrow, July 6, answering questions on jobs and the economy to those who post inquiries using the hashtag, #AskObama.
Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and executive chairman who sent the first Tweet ever in March 2006, will moderate the discussion. Dorsey will ask Obama the questions Twitter users ask, and the President’s responses will appear in real-time on the White House Twitter feed.
“A key aspect of a democracy is a common venue to question,” Dorsey tweeted just hours after the official White House announcement.
Twitter will rely on curators with diverse political and geographical backgrounds and a company called Mass Relevance to select the most popular questions.
“These curators will ask those in their particular communities to also highlight what they think are the most important questions for the President,” Twitter spokesman Sean Garrett told CNET.
The President hosted a similar town hall on Facebook in April with the site’s creator, Mark Zuckerberg.
The Twitter event also will function as a “Tweetup,” where users can attend an in-person meeting of @WhiteHouse followers and the President’s social media team. Attendees will be selected by random lottery.
The “Tweetup” will serve as a live audience for the virtual town hall in the East Room of the White House on July 6 at 2 p.m.
Obama decided earlier this month to begin publishing select Tweets on his own, using the signature BO, on his campaign’s @barackobama Twitter feed.
The President joins Pope Benedict, who took his first steps into the Twittersphere this week.
Both the Twitter town hall and Obama’s personal tweets are part of the President’s efforts to ramp-up the social media aspect of his campaign.
The 2012 campaign team launched a #DinnerwithBarackandJoe hashtag this month in which Twitter users can post ideal dinner conversation topics. The campaign then retweets their favorites.
Though Obama is using the social media site to his advantage, several politicians have risked their careers over Twitter posts this year.
Source: nydailynews.com
