The first words ever heard on Australian TV were delivered on 16 September, 1956, in the peculiarly English twang of the time: “Good evening, and welcome to television.” The first telephone call, according to its (admittedly disputed) inventor Alexander Graham Bell were “Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you.”

On Monday, the first words of Australia’s domestic spying agency Asio, as it launched its first-ever Twitter account, were a joke about it supposedly mass surveilling its own people.

“Hi internet,” it said. “We thought it would be fun if you followed us for a change.”

As increasing numbers of government intelligence agencies and police forces sign up to social media, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, who have the power to surveil and question Australian citizens, has joined the public relations push.

Asio’s entry has received a mixed reaction – especially at time when it is pushing for expanded powers, which would include interviewing children as young as 14.

In its first five days, the Asio account has managed to trade jokes with the Australian Signals Directorate, who were recently confirmed, for the first time, to have the power to spy on Australian citizens, and the British GCHQ, who were revealed in the Edward Snowden leaks to be collaborating with the NSA on internet mass surveillance.

Privacy body Digital Rights Watch quipped: “Asio can read your messages, but can’t read the room.”

The hashtag “#YourSecurityService” which has the catchiness of dry cement, has, as of Friday afternoon, only been used by 10 people who are not the Asio account, many of them critical.

“Thanks Asio,” one user wrote. “I’m so excited that #yoursecurityservice spies on me and my friends.”

In a press release posted to Asio’s website, its director-general of security, Mike Burgess said the account is designed to recruit staff, “engage” with Australians, and show that “Asio does have a sense of humour”.

Burgess said Asio staff submitted ideas for the account’s first tweet, and what resulted was “a combination of the best suggestions”.

“We toyed with the idea of tweeting ‘no comment’ and following it up with ‘and that’s off the record’,” he said. “But I’m keen to dispel any notion that Asio is a shadowy, unaccountable organisation.

“I have a strong personal belief in being as open and transparent as possible,” he said.

However, Asio’s social media manager declined to be interviewed, even over text, by Guardian Australia.

The spy agency simply said “We are happy with the overwhelming response” and pointed to the press release that had already been put out by Burgess.

This week, the spy agency also took the ABC on a tour of its headquarters and its “anechoic chamber”, a room of dead silence where it tests high-tech listening and surveillance devices.

Burgess also shared a few details of how the agency hides listening devices in furniture and inside the machinery of cars.

He confirmed to the ABC that the tour was a public relations exercise, saying: “There is no such thing as a casual conversation or media opportunity.”

Asio is of course not alone in entering the social media sphere.

Earlier this year, the FBI’s social media account was heavily criticised when it posted a tribute to Martin Luther King, despite the organisation secretly wiretapping the civil rights leader’s phone, surveilling him and sending him a letter saying that he should kill himself during his lifetime.

In 2016, the CIA was also labelled “distasteful” for deciding to live-tweet the events of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden on its five-year anniversary.

In Australia, the NSW police have rocketed up the Facebook engagement charts since pursuing a largely meme-based strategy in 2017, as has the Australian federal police.

A multi-thousand dollar review largely commended the New Zealand police for their use of social media, although it recommended it post fewer pictures of puppies.

It also had to apologise after tweeting out a joke about road deaths with an image of Steve Carrell from the US version of The Office.

Despite all this, Asio has promised that: “Over time, Asio will expand its social media presence to other platforms.”