Internet
“Hello, this is Olaf Scholz”: Traffic light now also on WhatsApp
“We would like to inform you and you as citizens well, that is also a very important concern for me”: Olaf Scholz. photo
© Angelika Warmuth/dpa
You can recently follow the Chancellor on the video platform Tiktok. Now the federal government is taking the next step and is also starting a WhatsApp channel.
After Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) launched a Tiktok channel, the federal government is also using the messenger service WhatsApp in the communication offensive.
Deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner announced the launch of a “Federal Government” WhatsApp channel in Berlin. “There, for example, we would like to provide information about the federal government’s decisions and projects,” Büchner told journalists. The first entry on the new channel itself said: “Here we inform you about what the federal government is working on, what it decides – and what else is politically important. Always very up-to-date and first-hand.”The offer is not only aimed at, but also to those users who did not use social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Tiktok, it said. At the start of the WhatsApp channel there was a voice message: “Hello, this is Olaf Scholz,” said the Chancellor. “We would like to inform you and you as citizens well, that is also a very important concern for me.” The government only recently launched the Chancellor’s Tiktok channel, which is intended to provide a contemporary insight into Scholz’s work with short videos and to reach young people. The topic so far, for example, has been his black leather briefcase, which he takes with him everywhere.
“WhatsApp is the most frequently used messenger service in Germany,” said Büchner. The Federal Press Office regularly checks how we can fulfill the constitutionally mandated information mandate “and this can only be achieved if we also focus on citizens’ actual media use.” The government spokesman emphasized that the information would only reach those who actively subscribed to the channel, watched it or followed it. “So don’t worry, you won’t read about us in your private chats and chat groups in the future either.”