World affairs

Like many countries, Sweden has a Twitter account that is operated by a different person every week. They might change that after what happened today.

The idea of a country having a Twitter account is not new. Ireland, @Ireland, has one and it is managed by a different person each week. The people can be, and are, from all walks of life and it showcases Ireland as a place full of very different, and interesting people.

Sweden has one too, and today the New York Times lauded their account on their front page, speaking about how great it was that the Swedish government trusts a different person to represent the country every week.

However, in a terrible collision of publicity and outright weirdness, this week’s manager, a 27-year-old named Sonja, decided today was the day to ask some questions about Jews, questions that could be interpreted as being a bit on the dodgy side.

Here’s the string of tweets that caused the fuss and in fairness to Sonja we assume she just phrased her questioning very, very poorly.

Sonja signed off three hours ago, saying she had 'stuff to do'. I imagine that included fielding a few calls from the Swedish tourism minister as the storm over thtweets went global.

We hope that this incident doesn’t turn Sweden off the idea of this type of promotion of their country, as it is innovative and interesting. And we hope @Ireland doesn’t get cold feet either.