IMHO, forums like Twitter are there for showing off power and emotions and not getting the message through. That would still be done through foreign ministries on mail. For a nation, it might be a self-defense tactic to give response to the rival nation's inflammatory comment on Twitter just to avoid becoming a villain (as Jason rightly said).
One can always make an anonymous ID and threaten someone. It is possible and the target will get frightened too. Famous and wealthy personalities are likely to get threats on public forums and in private.
Governments are responsible with their PR messages. So, even if they decide to use Twitter for these messages they would certainly look into the pros and cons. And above all they will know that they will be liable if anything goes wrong. It is just like the Press Releases on TV. A word once delivered cannot be taken back.
Till the time personal threats don't become a norm on Twitter, its management will remain silent. Political message exchanges that attract audience as well is a win win situation for Twitter. I don't see any legal complexities for Twtitter. Logically also a good forum should allow all kinds of discussions except racist and religious inflammatory ones.
For some reason I'm feeling that encouraging governments to use Twiitter for PR purposes is just wrong. PR, by it's nature doesn't mean the message is going to be accurate or by any means full disclosure of the truth of the matter.
When we rely on PR messages for getting the facts on serious situations, we're getting into really muddy territory.
We saw how the Obama campaign used advanced social media tools to get out its message and profile likely voters. There is no reason that countries at war could not do the same thing to drum up international support.
Monitoring could give gov't's a means of "closing the loop" so to speak.
What I mean is they could release statements (image engineering) on Twitter, Tumblr, or Facebook, then turn around and monitor reaction. Then they could readjust the message, carefully tuning it organically to give the proper reaction, just as a business does with ad campaigns and social media monitoring.
I think your last point is really on target, so to speak.
I think that's a serious concern if the U.S. ever opts for this approach, given that it seems to be overly liberal in granting sweeping account access/privileges (see: Spc. Bradley Manning, for example). But I think the IDF and Palestinians are savvy enough to only put their Twitter accounts in the hands of a handful of qualified PR folks who can tailor the information to whatever kind of image they're trying to project.
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