Earlier this week, Edward Snowden learned an important lesson about Twitter. When the exiled security geek joined the microblogging platform, followers flocked immediately.
Only half an hour after creating his account, over 70,000 people started to follow his tweets. The controversial security expert attracted more than 1.19 million followers in the brief time since he completed his profile. His popularity is high and increasing, as the first tweet he wrote is a favorite of 110,000 and got 120,000 retweets.
A temporary guest in Russia, Snowden may receive direct messages from anyone on Twitter and it seems that his hospitality goes further than that. When setting up the account, the tech whistleblower forgot to turn off notifications. The result was that every social interaction featuring @Snowden got recorded and he got an email informing him about every one of them.
On Oct. 1, the ex-CIA employee announced the world that he received 47GB of notifications.
I forgot to turn off notifications. Twitter sent me an email for each: Follow Favorite Retweet DM 47 gigs of notifications. #lessonlearned
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) October 1, 2015
On Tuesday, Sept. 29, the former NSA contractor made his debut on Twitter with the message "Can you hear me now?" In his description, the defector briefly describes his activity/. "I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public," Snowden says. The only account that Edward Snowden follows is that of the National Security Agency, his former employer in the United States. Fans look up to Snowden, who they see as a whistleblower uncovering the excesses of government. The intelligence leaks that he enabled brought espionage charges against him for from the U.S. administration. That is why, in May 2013, Snowden fled the United States and now lives in Russia, who granted him political asylum in 2014.
Jack Dorsey, Interim CEO at Twitter, welcomed the controversial user to the social network. In retort, George Pataki, presidential candidate of the Republican Party and ex New York Governor, asked Twitter to shut down Snowden's account.
Yes! Welcome to Twitter. https://t.co/gUBQpET6Gg — Jack (@jack) September 29, 2015
Whether mentioning the huge amount of virtual attention he received is self-irony or an act of vanity is debatable, it is clear that even tech whizzes like Snowden are prone to rookie mistakes, and that should make users everywhere feel better about their everyday technology mishaps.
