Spain gets first glimpse of PM’s goth daughters

The United States State Department got a crash course in the perils of social networking over the weekend. Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero and his family posed for a picture with Barack and Michelle Obama at the U.N. What the Zapateros didn’t know was that the picture would be posted online to the State ...

580387_090928_goths22.jpg
580387_090928_goths22.jpg

The United States State Department got a crash course in the perils of social networking over the weekend.

Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero and his family posed for a picture with Barack and Michelle Obama at the U.N. What the Zapateros didn’t know was that the picture would be posted online to the State Department’s Flickr page. This wouldn’t normally be a problem, except that the people of Spain have never seen any pictures of the prime minister’s daughters before.

Spanish Goths/Punks approve of the picture because, well, let’s say the girls appear to shop at Hot Topic. (Asunto Caliente?)

Spanish media was conflicted over the photo, many of them published it on the front page; however the state-owned news agency, EFE, did not run the photo. EFE said, “They should not have their personal rights prejudiced by the prime minister’s decision to take them to New York.”

The prime minister’s office was trying to get all of the photos down, claiming he tries to keep his children out of the public eye. A noble cause, it seems there should be some middle ground between the Spanish case and this.

Photo via Gawker.

Bobby Pierce is an editorial researcher at Foreign Policy.

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