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More than 1,400 Twitter users around the world took part in a US-government sponsored contest to define democracy and the most popular "tweet" was from a Chinese user, the State Department said Monday.
The two-week "Democracy is..." contest on the micro-blogging platform attracted submissions in eight languages from over 30 countries, the State Department said in a statement.
It said the "tweet" that was "re-tweeted," or forwarded, the most by Twitter users, was submitted by a Twitter user going by the handle "@zuola" from China.
"Democracy is a set of game rules that, in their gradual process towards perfection, independent individuals and organizations in a civil society seek to maximize their interests by using transparent and nonviolent means," read the message from @zuola, which presumably stuck to the 140-character Twitter limit in Chinese.
The State Department said the "Democracy is..." contest and another, the Democracy Video Challenge, in which users were encouraged to make videos about democracy, had "expanded the international conversation on democracy."
"Both contests engage with and amplify the views of young people around the world by using new media to break down cultural and geographic borders and involve younger audiences in a transparent and candid discussion about an issue of global importance," the State Department said.
It did not say whether the Chinese Twitter user @zuola had been named the official winner of the "Democracy is..." contest.
In announcing the contest, the State Department said the contestant whose message received the "greatest number of unique re-tweets" would receive a Flip video HD camcorder.
