5 reasons why Indian bureaucrats should not simply copy-paste PMO's Twitter venture

IF YOU are an Indian bureaucrat getting tempted to be on social media like Twitter, Facebook and blogger after Dr Manmohan Singh’s office began to tweet, here are five reasons why should not jumpstart before understanding the nuances of the virtual world.
1. First, Twitter is not meant for boring press releases. If you are a secretary in a ministry trying to dump boring sarkari releases, young men and women active on the net could tear you apart, virtually. Already, the @PMOindia account has received many negative reactions from angry netizens because of the boring nature of the 12 tweets that were published so far.
2. Secondly, the moment you maintain a successful account there are chances that some one else could clone your site to make fun of you. Remember, this is not your own power corridor, and you have lesser clout in this virtual world. For example, someone has replaced PMO’s O with 0 (zero) to make another similar looking Tweeter account. And that account has attracted over 700 followers mainly because of its funny tweets.
Indian team was not forced to follow on despite trailing by 300 runs. This will boost bilateral ties between India and Australia.
Government will not allow Facebook to launch its IPO in India. They have still not removed the picture denigrating Sonia ji.
These are two sample tweets of the fake PMO account, meaning these are not said by Singh or his team.
3. Thirdly, will you be able to block the negative publicity that may come from any quarters? For example, one of the tweets on PMO that became popular on Sunday evening came from someone who called herself “cool and confident girl”. She wrote: SC vs Govt in 2G, People vs Govt in Lokpal, CVC vs Govt, Chidu vs Court in scams Govt vs Army Chf, Govt vs Scientist? Govt vs net?
In fact, if you spend some time scanning hundreds of reactions on PM’s tweets, you will find more negative and nasty comments. The PMO can still use its muscle to remove really bad and damaging tweets, but don’t expect minister Kapil Sibal to rescue you if your tweets generate hundreds of really low-quality negative comments.
4. If you are a bureaucrat with a sense of humour or an open mind, you could land yourself in trouble because of your tweeting enthusiasm. For example, if you are a home ministry official publishing a frank comment on a finance ministry misdeed, there is a chance that someone takes a screenshot and sends it to a news channel. You never know, that could find prime time slots on yet another Pranab-PC debate.
5. Finally, fun elements at times could divert the readers from the real issues which you would like to highlight. Mumbai-based model Poonam Pandey’s tweets on Prime Minister Singh, for example, would not have received so much of attention from Indian media, had Miss Pandey’s twitter account not carried her bikini-clad photo.
Yet, PMO’s Twitter venture is not a failure either. There are many young Indians who have praised Singh for his talents, image and understanding of economics. Some have called Singh their role model. One Ishan tweeted: Honourable PM saab ur the best pm India has ever seen. planning to visit the gallery specially to watch u in the budget session
babu blogger (https://twitter.com/babublogger) too followed PM on Monday morning and became the 32,562^nd follower.