Edward Snowden — NSA whistleblower, Moscow resident and anti-surveillance folk hero — has joined Twitter, claiming the @Snowden handle.
Edward Snowden Opens a Twitter Account, Executes Successful Troll Before Ever Tweeting
He racked up more than 200,000 followers in just a couple of hours.
Twitter
In an interview with Fusion’s Kashmir Hill last week, Snowden said he hadn’t yet joined services like Twitter because of security concerns, but that he had plans to start becoming active on social media. The Intercept reports that Twitter gave Snowden the @Snowden username as it hadn’t been used in three years, and it sounds like pop scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson had something to do with getting him on Twitter.
Since opening his account this morning, it appears Snowden has quickly gotten the hang of how Twitter works: He trollishly follows only one account (the NSA), his first exchange is a superficial conversation with another famous figure and his cover photo depicts newspaper front page stories about an NSA court loss.
We’ve reached out to Snowden over Twitter direct message, and we’ll report back if we hear anything.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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