Edward Snowden is now on Twitter

29 Sep 2015

'I used to work for the government. Now I work for the people' says Edward Snowden

After just 25 minutes of being on Twitter, rogue NSA contractor Edward Snowden had amassed close to 60,000 followers and growing.

Snowden appeared on Twitter this afternoon (28 September) with the verified Twitter handle @Snowden.

In his personal description he says: “I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public.”

His debut tweet is ironic: “Can you hear me now?”

Snowden’s introduction to Twitter is also ironic in that he is following only one entity on Twitter, the NSA. The NSA, ironically, in this case, is not following Snowden. At least not at the time of writing.

For someone who has made a massive impact on our understanding of what the US authorities had been doing with people’s data through prolific revelations, let’s hope he’ll be just as prolific at tweeting.

twitter-snowden

Edward Snowden on cover of Wired image via Mike Mozart on Flickr/Creative Commons

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com