Snowden Bombarded With 47GB Of Twitter Emails
The former US National Security Agency contractor launched a Twitter account this week, but forgot to turn off email alerts.
12:12 Friday 02 October 2015
Edward Snowden's account quickly gained hundreds of thousands of followers
Within 24 hours of US surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden joining Twitter, he had accumulated 1.2 million followers and received hundreds of thousands of messages.
There was just one problem - he forgot to turn off notifications, meaning he received an email in his inbox for every single one.
Every new follower, favourite, retweet and direct message triggered an alert from Twitter, clogging up his inbox at an incredible rate.
The total size of the unwanted emails was 47 gigabytes, the equivalent of streaming video for two days.
The former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor launched the verified account on Tuesday.
He tweeted: "I forgot to turn off notifications. Twitter sent me an email for each follow, favourite, retweet and direct message. #lessonlearned"
Someone had already taken his name on Twitter but the social network agreed to hand over the account as the owner had not used it for three years.
Snowden is wanted in the US for leaking thousands of classified documents detailing American and UK spying programmes, and is now based in Russia, where he was granted asylum in 2013.
