Edward Snowden’s embrace of Twitter on Tuesday made waves across the social network – and of course, generated controversy.
Hours after the man who achieved international notice for leaking thousands of National Security Agency documents joined Twitter, Republican presidential candidate and former New York Gov. George Pataki called on the social network to revoke Snowden’s account.
“Twitter is a great American company that should not give a platform to terrorists or traitors – @Jack shutdown @Snowden today,” the former New York governor tweeted at Twitter cofounder and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey.
Pataki also called Snowden “a traitor who put Americans at risk, hides in Russia and belongs behind bars.”
Pataki’s comments caught the attention of Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who received and published reports based on the leaked documents. Greenwald mocked Pataki, tweeting, “Hi, I’m running for President. My support in all polls is an asterisk. And I’m here to say who should and shouldn’t be allowed on Twitter.”
For his part, Dorsey welcomed Snowden to Twitter.
As of this writing Snowden has over 680,000 followers on Twitter.