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 Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, has joined Facebook, offering a glimpse at his personal life as well as his goings on as Ruler.
There we are, then.
Sheikh Mohammed has long been keen on using the web, only a few months ago announcing an ongoing project to accept and answer questions via his website as Prime Minister of the UAE.
His Facebook page, though, is appropriately a much more personal affair, with details of his interests and taste in reading material – including Tolstoy’s War And Peace and political biographies of Nixon, Charles De Gaulle, and Henry Kissinger – and currently two albums of pictures, one on his family life, and one on “everyday encounters”.
Judging from Sheikh Mohammed’s wall, he joined the site as early as the start of June, if not before – he was certainly in line to claim a unique user name (“sheikhmohammed”), which was only available to Facebook users signed up before 9 June.
News outlets got hold of the page over the weekend, but it’s unclear as to whether there was any kind of official announcement, or if some bright spark simply stumbled across the page.
Currently Sheikh Mohammed has a commendably tight rein over his Facebook information: non-friends can see his information and his Wall, including photo albums, but can’t see a list of his friends. However, Sheikh Mohammed can be added as a friend, messaged, or even “poked”.
Anyone brave or foolhardy enough to perform this latter action, please do let us know how you get on.
As to accepting friends, Sheikh Mohammed certainly seems to have plenty, and judging by some of the comments they’re leaving on his page, they are regular people, rather than just his close circle. The balance also tends towards Emiratis over other nationalities, which is to be expected.
We guess there’s a slightly voyeuristic edge to taking such a close look at the Facebook page of Sheikh Mohammed – but like it or not, his status as a public figure makes this inevitable.
And as he has clearly taken a decision not to restrict access to the page, it seems that Sheikh Mohammed is happy to let Facebook become one of his public... er, faces.
Public figures, especially rulers and politicians, have a poor record of dabbling with the web, especially some of the more interactive bits (think of anything UK PM Gordon Brown has done, ever), but this looks to be as well-managed a job as is possible, and is definitely an interesting experiment in interacting with the wider public.
We will be interested to see how Sheikh Mohammed uses his Facebook page to engage with people in the future.
Heck, he’s an interesting person – we’ll just be fascinated to see what he’s up to.
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