Digital minister live-tweets 1st day in office

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:24 JST, August 12, 2022

Taro Kono, the digital minister in the newly reshuffled Kishida Cabinet, spent his first day in his post Wednesday like no other minister — showing off his tech-savvy by tweeting his every move in office.

His tweets from the day include: “The prime minister’s secretary phoned me to call me over, so I’m off to the prime minister’s office” and “Received a written directive from the prime minister.”

On Wednesday afternoon, the new ministers gathered at the prime minister’s office. Kono posted several tweets about the gathering in almost real time, such as one saying that the ministers watched a video to see how they should move at their attestation ceremony. He also posted a photo of the formal document for his appointment that he received from Kishida.

Kono, who has 2.49 million Twitter followers, has made a routine of sending out information to the public.

A self-proclaimed rationalist, Kono postponed by two days his own press conference as a new minister, which is usually done on the first day in office, to Friday. He reportedly told those around him, “Better on the day after tomorrow than late at night.”

On Wednesday, he only issued a brief statement in which he said, “I intend to push forward with digitization to make people’s lives more convenient and to create a more welcoming society,” and avowed that he had no ties with the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (formerly the Unification Church).