The recent diplomatic spat between South Korea and Israel over South Korean President Lee Jae-myung’s post on X sharing a video of Israel’s atrocities against Palestinians marked the official beginning of South Korea’s digital diplomacy. Lee’s government is taking its social media accounts beyond the simple announcement of foreign policy and diplomatic initiatives and scripted posts prepared by aides and officials.

Digital diplomacy seems inevitable in the age of social media and the need for direct public diplomacy by presidents, diplomats, and high-level officials. However, personalistic digital diplomacy also presents risks by fragmenting the diplomatic “face” of a state, leading to confusing interpretations of a government’s foreign policy and diplomatic initiatives. This happens when users, both governmental and non-governmental, conflate an official’s social media post as representing a state’s official position on an issue. 

As South Korea’s recent diplomatic row with Israel demonstrates, a social media post with the best intentions to project a government’s or state’s positive image can backfire, causing friction not only with the targeted state but also with others. 

On April 9, Lee shared a post from another X user purporting to show “live footage” as Israeli forces “tortured a Palestinian kid and threw him off a roof.” Lee wrote, “I need to look into whether this is true, and if so, what measures were taken.” He added, “The forced sexual servitude of ‘comfort women’ – which we protest against – is no different from the Holocaust or wartime atrocities.”

Israel reacted strongly, with its Foreign Ministry issuing “strong condemnation” – also on X. 

In this specific case, the social media diplomacy row between Israel and South Korea could have spilled over to South Korea’s relations with the United States – where the current Donald Trump administration maintains close relations with Israel – but also with Japan – which could have reacted to Lee’s subsequent social media post that Israel’s actions were comparable to not only the Holocaust but the forced sexual slavery (or the “comfort women” system) during Japan’s colonial rule.

The diplomatic row has since been settled, but Lee’s personalistic digital diplomacy has also caused an uproar within South Korea, as the opposition party criticized Lee for posting on social media “indiscriminately.” 

One could see Lee’s social media posts with a grain of salt, as many social media users have come to interpret other world leaders’ posts. But what makes this incident significant in light of South Korea’s diplomatic representation and practices is that Foreign Minister Cho Hyun defended Lee’s social media posts as reflecting South Korea’s identity as a member of the international community and its respect for universal human rights. This defense constitutes South Korea’s official acknowledgment of digital diplomacy as a diplomatic practice and a representation of South Korea’s diplomatic “face.” 

Personalistic digital diplomacy, or social media diplomacy directly undertaken by high-level officials, can create opportunities for more direct communication with other governments and individuals by amplifying the significance of foreign policy and diplomacy. For example, the United States and Iran achieved a breakthrough during the nuclear negotiations in 2014-5 through high-level communication on social media. 

Personalistic digital diplomacy can also promote national interests by increasing visibility, as demonstrated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s use of social media to symbolize resistance and garner international support for Ukraine’s war efforts. Direct posting by leaders and high-level officials can help humanize states and induce positive impressions of their governments and country, making them more relatable to global social media users. 

At the same time, such digital diplomacy, if used erratically on the whims of individual leaders and officials, could spark misunderstanding and escalate diplomatic tensions between states. U.S. President Donald Trump’s use of Truth Social to announce or comment on policies directed not only at domestic politics but also at other world leaders and governments has been causing much consternation across the globe. 

Seen in the light of how social media has been used (and abused) by world leaders in the last decade, Lee’s comments on the video of the Israeli Defense Force throwing a body off a building make South Korea a relative newcomer in the use of personalistic digital diplomacy directly by leaders. 

If Seoul is invested in making digital diplomacy an official diplomatic channel and communication conducted directly by high-level officials, ministers, and presidents, it should coordinate diplomatic messages and interactions.  That would minimize the fragmentation of South Korea’s digital diplomatic representation and diplomatic face to ensure it represents to the best as possible a united front and the intended diplomatic signal and message it wants to convey to the rest of the world as clearly as possible. This is especially important in the age of social media, where misperceptions and misinterpretations of posts abound due to their multivocality and the short attention spans of social media users.