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The Dalai Lama Has Come to Twitter... For Real

by Amar Toor on February 23, 2010 at 03:35 PM


No one really knows what went down during last week's closed-door meeting between Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, but at least we now know about the small miracle that transpired when His Holiness recently met with Twitter co-founder Evan Williams.

After last year's fake Dalai Lama Twitter account tricked 16,000 people into following it, the Tibetan spiritual leader has apparently decided to take the plunge and join for real. The account @DalaiLama, which was actually set up a week before Sunday's Twitter-Tibet Summit, has just been confirmed by Twitter authorities as 100-percent authentic, according to ReadWriteWeb. Shortly after Williams posted a cryptically suggestive tweet on Monday ("Met the Dalai Lama today in LA. Pitched him on using Twitter. He laughed."), news of the Dalai Lama's official Twittership broke, and VP of Communications Sean Garret took the occasion to formally welcome him to the platform.

This, quite simply, has got to be Twitter's biggest victory ever. This is a man who, to many, stands as the paradigm of ascetic, monastic living, and who, just last year, decried technology as an obstacle to peace. Sure, he has an iPhone app with his name on it, but, until recently, His Holiness hadn't even heard of Tiger Woods. While we still find it a bit hard to believe that Evan Williams could've said anything revelational enough to change the Dalai Lama's mind, we're just glad that it worked. Exiled from his own land and tirelessly waging an uphill battle against the Chinese government, the Dalai Lama has long been seizing every opportunity to speak to the rest of the non-totalitarian world, which has largely been more than eager to listen. With a Twitter account now under his belt, that's suddenly become easier than ever. [From: ReadWriteWeb]

Tags: china, dalai lama, DalaiLama, evan williams, evanwilliams, religion, socialnetworking, tibet, top, twitter

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