José Manuel Albares defends the use of Twitter to combat populisms

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, the European Union and cooperation, José Manuel Albares, brought the Golden Brooch to the ninth edition of Talking about Twitter, organized by the ‘ideal’ of the Granada newspaper. The event, the largest in the world that existed for the platform, achieved a series of 11 million users and more than 10,000 interactions with the tweets that were generated during the two days of presentations, which made #Tatgranada21 in the national trend. 4,700 people followed the broadcast of the interventions of 30 international experts and influential profiles in social networks, who think about the use of the network during pandemic and the future challenges, such as the fight against wrong information or hateful speeches.

This referred to Albares during his speech in the Auditorium of the Science Park. The minister defended the use of Twitter by democratic public representatives to ‘combat populism’. He has been a user of the social network since 2019. From his profile, he informs about activities of his cabinet that go beyond the public agenda: meetings that held with the State Secretary of the United States, the decoration of the ambassador personnel in Kabul or the trips to Qatar and Afghanistan to close the departure of the Spanjers and employees of the airport.

The minister emphasized that networks ‘should be employed by society and progress’. In foreign matters they are useful communication tools with the citizen, who can even know the rise of the internet only the institutional activity through specialized publications. They are also for the employees themselves, who are able to identify from threats to election processes or delegitimization campaigns against Spain. “Thanks to Twitter, we are informed of hateful speeches,” he said.

Another of the morning presentations had the representative of Vox for Granada, Macarena Olona as the protagonist. In his interview with the deputy director of Ideal, Quico Chirino, he opened the door to be a candidate for his training for the Andalusian elections. He also launched a national message: «Who would not feel honor to lead to Andalusia? Of course I would be honored. And would come in with clean hands and heart full of love for Andalusia. And that is clear: the government, in Moncloa or San Telmo, will be with Vox or will not be ».

In her speech, Olona criticized the “energy terror” that the country experiences. «I said in the congress what the only solution is left by the government: Euthanasia. Do you think it’s hard? It’s difficult. Is it a lie? That’s where we should see. For those who practice globalism, they shouted in the air. But that, the euthanasia, a patient tweeted with Ela. Literally that.

Twitter and freedom

Freedom and use of Twitter as a tool for freedom in Latin -America was one of the things that were discussed during the second talk about Twitter session, performed by Iñaki Cano. The president of Prisoners Defenders, Javier Larrondo, debated with the nationalized Venezuelan businessman, activist and politician Spanish Leopoldo López Gil, father of the Venezuelan leader. Larrondo explained what happened in Cuba on July 11: «Some people went out to ask for freedom. He jumped to social networks, to Twitter. We all started tweeting what happened, and fifty cities got up. It was unthinkable how it happened in such a perfect harmony in just two or three hours ». Leopoldo López wanted to clarify that Twitter is not a replacement, but an instrument that makes communication possible, because it happened with the printing press in the past centuries.

The business people were also represented in talking about Twitter. The Vice President of Banco Santander in Spain, also General Director of Communication, Business Marketing and Entity Studies, Juan Manuel Cendoya, analyzed the relevance of digital platforms in the financial sector. “For companies it is crucial to be on social networks, that is not possible,” he said. According to her criteria, the presence must be “orderly”, according to a communication strategy “segmented, modern and tries to solve the problems of people.”

For his part, Raúl Berdonés, executive president of Grupo Secuoya, emphasized the symbiosis between social networks and audiovisual productions. The content of the series has jumped to Twitter, to the point that there are specialists who are responsible for analyzing the conversations on the network to transfer opinions about their chapters to the producers.

Canal Sur, talking about Twitter employee, showed his dedication to the “Andalusian talent that breaks with all topics”, also via social platforms. The director of Canal Sur Media, Juanma Blanco Poley, explained that “Twitter is currently not the most populated network, it does not have the Facebook, Instagram or TIK tok numbers, but it is the most influential because it channels the event live.” Blanco Poley breaks down the success of ‘Tierra de Talent’ with his presenter, the humorist, director and producer Manu Sánchez. The program is the source of ‘Memes’ and Tweets that have been virited every Saturday.

The same happens every evening with the chiringuito from Jugones, a phenomenon of sports TV that has life past the small screen. Fermín Canas, Álex Silvestre, Cristóbal Soria and José Damián González, part of the team led by Josep Pedrerol, analyzed in talking about Twitter, the importance of live interaction with the spectators: “The Chiringuito is not understood without Twitter.”