How hashtags save hostages

The Russian Foreign Ministry on his Twitter account published a photograph with the hashtag of Save Our Guys - Save our boys, Lifenews journalists Oleg Sidyakin and Marat Saichenko, stolen under the Kramatorsky on May 18. VGTRK employee Vladimir Solovyov, singer Valery, Aram and Ashot Gabrelyanova, actress-deputy Maria Kozhevnikova hold a piece of paper with an inscription in English. Since both hands are busy, they are not shutty with this inscription, but a portrait (this is how it looks ).

This campaign is the paraphrase of the American and British rescue schoolgirls from Nigeria, captured by the Boko Haram terrorist organization. A photograph with a similar inscription, Bring Back Oour Girls, published Michelle Obama,David Cameron and many other Western figures.

Both of these shares cause similar issues. Can someone explain how the campaign in social media, to which even hundreds of famous people joined, will help the liberation of hostages? They do not collect money for charity, but make appeals to armed people. One of the militants of Boko Haram will turn out to be a fan of Salma Hayek, and the other armed man in Ukraine, a fan of singer Valeria and decides to let girls and boys let go?

Who is the addressee of the Russian Foreign Ministry and why does the Russian diplomatic department are trying to save hostages, posting pictures on social networks, when there are more traditional ways?

The addressee of the message about Russian journalists-those who know how to read in English. The inscription “Save OUR Guys” is translated as follows: “Boys detained in Ukraine by the National Guard and put on knees under the muzzle of machine guns are no different from girls captured by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria, it would be time to admit that the Kiev authorities are behaving like terrorists.”

But Western journalists, who paid attention to the Russian hashtag, read the message as follows: “The Russians in their propaganda crossed all the permissible boundaries of morality, now for the sake of destabilizing the situation in Ukraine they are ready to play with our campaign to save schoolgirls, comparing Ukraine with Nigeria.”

There were no less contradictions with Michelle Obama and her post. The inscription in her hands should have been read like this: “We, Americans, and I, the mother of two black girls, perceive the trouble of Nigerian schoolgirls as our own, we don’t care, and we ask you to free them.”

But British and American journalists saw another message in this inscription: “The United States did not pay attention when Boko Haram shot Nigerian schoolchildren and students, we are not very interested in Nigeria, there are many problems, but now that the Nigerian government has abandoned our military assistance, we decided to put pressure on them with the help of social networks and all American celebrities.”

Nevertheless, despite the inconsistency that people who have a very real offline power are trying to use online campaigns to achieve their goals, in both cases, a hashtag-diplomacy is rather justified. Until Russia does not plan to physically release journalists, and the United States is physically releasing schoolgirls, ministers and heads of state have only one opportunity to say “we express serious concern” and try to use international organizations so that they also issue statements and express “serious concern”. And then it remains only to hope that this symbolic pressure will have some influence on the situation. Symbolic pressure is still better than a military.