Tech-savvy pope reaches 40 million followers on Twitter
THE pope has racked up 40 million followers on Twitter, the Vatican said yesterday, underlining the Catholic leader’s status as one of the world’s biggest social media players.
The total, spread across accounts in nine languages, leaves Pope Francis neck and neck with his occasional online sparring partner US President Donald Trump (40.3 million followers), but still trailing Barack Obama (95 million) and Katy Perry (104 million).
A net nine million new Twitter users have followed the various @pontifex accounts in the last year, according to the Vatican, which views the microblogging site as increasingly important for communicating with the faithful and non-believers.
Francis, 80, has become a star of the platform despite the dry, religious nature of most of his tweets.
The Argentine pontiff’s Spanish account has the most followers (14.6 million), followed by English (14 million).
A popular Latin one has 843 000 (more than the German or Arabic feeds), to the delight of the ancient language’s dwindling band of teachers.
Francis, who also counts five million followers on Instagram, is not the first pope to tweet.
His predecessor, Benedict XVI, started in December 2012, just months before he retired due to failing health.
Tweets in the name of the pope appear on average just under once a day.
“God does not disappoint! He has placed hope in our hearts so that it can blossom and bear fruit,” he wrote in his latest missive.
However, it is not all theology. The social medium also offers the pope a platform to react quickly to global events, or voice his views on the social issues of the day.