Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

‘Hello, world’: GCHQ, Twitter and social media engagement

2020; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/02684527.2020.1713434

1743-9019

Liam McLoughlin, Stephen J. A. Ward, Daniel W. B. Lomas,

Cybersecurity and Cyber Warfare Studies

In May 2016, Britain's signals intelligence agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) joined the social media platform Twitter to considerable press fanfare. But to date, no analysis has been undertaken regarding the use and outcomes of social media by the agency - once referred to as Britain's 'most secret'. This article posits that, while the use of social media has allowed the agency to reach out to a new tech-savvy generation, its presence on the platform can sometimes stoke and amplify conspiracy theories affecting issues such as brand identity as GCHQ adopts a new, media friendly approach.