Rinkevics said he understands that the information should be transmitted in different languages for more people to be able to understand it.
In a 2012 referendum Latvians rejected the option of making Russian the country's second official language. The minister believes that posts written in two languages "informally legitimize" what the nation had voted against. Rinkevics noted that he doesn't mind if the same information is transmitted in different languages, if separately.
The US embassy responded by promising to make adjustments to its style of communicating via social media. Press-attaché Leslie Goodman said that the embassy wants the information about the US to reach the widest possible audience in Latvia and therefore will continue using Russian, but more carefully.
In July, The Latvian state Language Center fined the mayor of Latvian capital Riga, Nils Usakovs, for using Russian language in social media accounts belonging to the Riga city council, although the majority of Riga's residents speak Russian. Usakovs said that the language center acted illegally and that he plans to appeal the fine.
The mayor also posted a simple skulls cartoon on his Facebook page "dedicated to the State Language Center", implying that Latvian officials might still be at an earlier stage of evolution.
Usakovs was one of the first to notice the US embassy's habitual writing in Russian and advised its employees to "brace themselves" via Facebook.
