British spy agency GCHQ joins Twitter

British spy agency GCHQ, which specialises in garnering intelligence from communications, on Tuesday joined the micro-blogging website with its first tweet "Hello World".

"Joining social media is likely to be part of the agency's outreach attempts to attract new recruits from different demographics that might be more comfortable communicating on social media," technology website Techcrunch.com reported.

"We want GCHQ to be more accessible and to help the public understand more about our work. We also want to reach out to the technical community and add our voice to social media conversations about technology, maths, cyber security, and other topics where we have a view," the agency said in a statement.

"We will be using Twitter to talk about our history, mission outcomes, languages, maths, cyber security, technology and innovation, job opportunities and as a way of signposting events, publications, news, blogs, and opinion pieces," the statement added.

Former US spy-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden whose disclosures have sparked debates over mass surveillance, is not (yet) followed by GCHQ.

--IANS

na/vt