You can’t just leave Facebook, if you’re Angela Merkel and Chancellor of Germany – Der Spiegel

Last week,  at 11 a.m., the fan page of Germany’s chancellor, a woman who has led the country for over 13 years and until recently had 2.5 million followers, disappeared from public view. Now, if you search Merkel’s name on Facebook, you’ll only find Angie in Michigan and pages like, “Angela Merkel Resign Now.”

Merkel’s Facebook page, the most successful of any German politician’s, could have been turned into many different things. Her team at the national headquarters of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party had put together a memo listing possible ideas, but Merkel ignored them and decided to simply end it.

Merkel’s step raises fundamental questions: Can a prominent politician single-handedly choose to leave Facebook? Doesn’t her digital legacy need to be archived along with her files, letters and memos? And doesn’t posterity have the right to know how Angela Merkel communicates in a sphere which she herself has described as “Neuland,” a new frontier.

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