Another ways to pursue public diplomacy

The development of social networks is offering a wide array of opportunities for public diplomacy. And equally, for abuse and widespread hate and terrorism on line.

I was this year to a conference about the Middle East where one participant, originally from Pakistan, was encouraging the contacts between Westerners and people from the Muslim world, as a way to exchange ideas and share insights from the two worlds. On the other side, the reality is that, from my own experience, this kind of dialogues are limited unfortunately to sharing our own stereotypes and taking the advantage of anonimity for sharing the hate. In this case, a mix between classical public diplomacy tools to be continued and pursued in the virtual environment. Using only one tool is not enough and the enthusiasm is not a miraculous cure of old and aggressive hates.