The term Facebook diplomacy was coined sometime in October 2008 in casual notes exchanged on Twitter, in connection to U.S. President Barack Obama's electoral political campaign's keen use of Facebook and other social network websites. The term Facebook diplomacy was further introduced and elaborated to describe the potential 'soft power' that can be created with Internet social networking tools like Facebook to counter terrorism, and interfere with repressive governments and militant groups in a discussion at a social networking and technology conference in December 2008 in New York.
During the December conference in New York, the United States Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy, James Glassman said, "New technology gives the United States and other free nations a significant advantage over terrorists." In his presentation at New York'sColumbia University Law School, he went on to illustrate how Facebook diplomacy and on-line activism created success through the use of Facebook groups and the use of the platform to create activism and cause global awareness relative to issues in Colombia against the infamous FARC rebels.
In general, Facebook diplomacy is a user created hybrid of public diplomacy and citizen diplomacy as applied in the Facebook social networking platform. Other terms that have also evolved in this diplomacy category include Twitter diplomacy, Google diplomacy and digital diplomacy. In March 2009 some Facebook users started a Facebook users group called MUNSNE, which changed their name to Globcal International in May. Their founding principles engaged the further development and refinement of public and citizen diplomacy as it applies for use within the Facebook Platform with the developed introduction of protocol, principles, and a best practice guide based on several ISO-like standards relative to writing, and public presentation. Globcal's public diplomacy concept differs from that of the US State Department because it offers a broad global democratic world-view instead of the United States propagandized perception as described in some public diplomacy descriptions.
Facebook and Twitter ambassador
Facebook ambassador is a generic term representation as an idiom or neologism that can be attributed to individual users on Facebook who have developed a Facebook page presence and professional representation on Facebook as an 'ambassador' of 'networking' that promote their agendas in a general socially beneficial manner and ideally a cooperative way in their representative appearance to other Facebook users by following Facebook best practices, strictly adhering to Facebook's policies, and by following selective hybridized protocols conducive to the generation of compounded social networking activity as a virtual communitarian, and peacemaker to promote multiple social causes and other socially beneficial activities. The 'Facebook Ambassadors' of public and citizen diplomacy include over 200 ambassadors from 87 countries that each maintain a public profile or fan page and together maintain many popular Facebook pages like Goodwill Ambassadors, Ambassadors of the World, Peace and Goodwill, and Age of Aquarius which collectively have nearly 250,000 subscribers. Alternatively, Facebook ambassador may also refer to Facebook Garage Ambassadors who are dedicated to the technical aspect of Facebook development. Research 'Facebook Developer Garage' and 'Garage-In-A-Box'.
