Dalai Lama to 'Tweet' on Tibet

February 23rd 2010

Washington, DC, USA, 23 February 2010 (AFP) - The Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has joined micro-blogging service Twitter, attracting over 55,000 followers in just two days.

The Dalai Lama's Twitter feed -- @DalaiLama -- was launched on Monday, a day after he met in Los Angeles with Evan Williams, one of Twitter's founders.

"Met the Dalai Lama today in LA. Pitched him on using Twitter. He laughed," Williams "tweeted" following the meeting.

The next day, however, the Tibetan spiritual leader had an account and received a "Welcome @DalaiLama" message from Twitter's new spokesman, Sean Garrett.

The Dalai Lama's account has sent seven messages so far although they are not pearls of wisdom from His Holiness but rather links to articles and photos of his activities during his current US visit.

The creation of a Twitter account by the Dalai Lama comes a year after Twitter suspended an account set up by an imposter which attracted tens of thousands of followers.

Following the incident with the fake Dalai Lama account and other impersonations Twitter began a system of "verified accounts" for public figures. The new Dalai Lama account is a "verified account."

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