British spy agency GCHQ joins Twitter, follows James Bond

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

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

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.

Apart from following UK government handles, GCHQ is also following the official Twitter account of James Bond.

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