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Environment secretary Caroline Spelman has told a committee of MPs that she and her department "learnt a great deal" from the online campaign against selling off forests.
Spelman's plans met with an organised opposition via social media earlier this year.
MPs were inundated with emails from constituents opposing the plans, while campaign group 38 Degrees set up an online petition signed by hundreds of thousands of people.
Spelman was eventually forced to abandon the proposed sell-off.
Today she told the environment, food and rural affairs committee that all politicians have learnt a great deal from the emergence of social media and its new "significance".
She said its importance could touch on "national security", as it did during August's riots.
Spelman revealed that Defra had "monitored extremely closely" online reactions to the forest issue.
"We keep a constant monitoring of the number of people who comment on that issue," she said.
Spelman said the "traffic of discussion" was of particular interest.
Bronwyn Hill, Defra’s permanent secretary, said she was naturally "nervous" of civil servants interacting with social media.
"We have occasionally done so when we felt the facts were so out of kilter," she told the committee.
She said the recent online chatter about Bovine TB had led the chief vet to "intervene on Twitter" to set the facts straight.
"We only do that rarely and on a factual basis," Hill said, to "aid the public".
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