Edward Snowden, America’s controversial privacy activist joined Twitter Tuesday with his first tweet below:
Can you hear me now?
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 29, 2015
Edward Snowden, born on June 21, 1983 is a computer professional, former CIA employee, and former government contractor who disclosed classified information from the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013. The former NSA contractor on his twitter handle said : “I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public.” His first 30 minutes following the initial tweet had him over 75,000 followers and only 1 account followed which is the NSA.
A Twitter spokesman said Mr. Snowden was controlling the account himself and that the account was owned by someone else but was inactive for 3 years and so Twitter gave it to Snowden. Mr. Snowden has been living in exile in Moscow to avoid facing prosecution in the U.S. for leaking government secrets.
Twitter as a company had played a major role in defending the act of free speech, though it has taken steps to suspend accounts that had links to terror groups, for example.
“Hero, traitor—I’m just a citizen with a voice,” Mr. Snowden tweeted.
