President Barack Obama has one of the most popular Twitter accounts with over 2.6 million followers. It should be no real surprise that most of the time it’s not him tweeting from it, instead its various people within the White House communication team that use the account to send out information. And now that he is the President, certainly there are some security concerns with him using something like Twitter. But, did you know that he’s actually never used Twitter at all?
That revelation was made tonight during a Q&A session at a town hall event with Chinese youth that was held in Shanghai this evening (which was streamed live on the web). The President fielded a question about the restricted use of Twitter in China and he had this to say, “I have never used Twitter but I’m an advocate of technology and not restricting internet access.”
This is interesting considering the Internet, and social media in particular, was considered a large part of his ascension to the Presidency. Obviously, he had a killer team around him that was able to embrace the web without the then-Senator getting too much involved. Still, it’s somewhat surprising that he never sent any of his own tweets during the primaries. And undoubtedly part of us wants to believe that when you see tweets like “This is history,” which was sent on November 7 — or “Humbled” after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, that’s it could the President really sending it. Nope.
Of course, the more important story here is his stance on Chinese Internet censorship. It’s ridiculous that people in China are restricted from accessing certain parts of the Internet. But we’ve all known that for a long time, and we’ve known the President’s position on it.
i was kind of bummed to hear him admit that. it means that it really wasn’t him texting my phone at 4am during the elections either. darn.
well he never admitted to not texting. could be!
the fact that u thought it was him is even more hilarious
+1
= 2 fools.
um, it’s called sarcasm. some people pick up on it. others obviously don’t.
ha ha
-1
+1
DAMN! I cancelled you out!
+0
Now what did I do here?
-0
is it just me or does -0 look like a nut? you guys know what i’m talking about right? females are free to respond as well.
Christine, it look like we are 2 now on Techcrunch ( with a Master Degree in sarcasm) thinking it wasn’t him texting our phone at 4am during the elections !
I saw also in the 2012 movie that the president was not able to tweet about the big wave coming on the White house !! How come ?
Just means that sometime soon we’re going to have a “This is really me” tweet from the Obama account.
yeah there should be a ‘realobama’ account
haha. looks like that account is already taken.
http://twitter.com/realobama
There’s always @obamarama and @obamamama, not to mention @obamallama and @obamaosama.
So… yeah.
Yes, but whereas non of those accounts are verified, @BarackObama is — which makes me feel good.
I guarantee you the guys running his Twitter account have already read this and there will be a correction made soon. …that will likely warrant another MGTC post.
RT @barackberry We can use the Internet to lead this nation out of crisis: let’s commit ourselves to digitally stimulating the economy
Yeah, or maybe a new account called THE_REAL_OBAMA
Considering he is an influential figure, twitter will allow him to take over the an account bearing his name.
Though, I don’t know if he would be allowed, considering he already has a verified account.
What about that “Humbled” tweet after he won the Nobel Peace Prize? Was that just PR work?
Does his team ask his feelings prior to updating his Twitter account?
oh yes, another good one.
he actually said he was humbled. it was also the official comment coming out of the white house that day and i’m sure the spokesperson gibbs also said that the president said yadda yadda yadda and this was mentioned, the president’s thoughts/current state. all this from what i remembered from watching all day cnn.
anyways when i saw the headline for this story i thought is this really news, but i guess it is. the other half is more important, the town hall meeting where he made the comments about china becoming more open. odd to see him explaining the town hall. i wish i could have seen it live, or if i can see it at all. i’ll probably have to google for the video. i’ve seen clips of it but i wish to see the whole thing.
People must be kidding. I doubt he updates the Facebook page either people. Come on…
I’d bet that 90% of politicians do not actually send their own tweetsso this isn’t really a surprise.
Who actually thinks that Sen. John McCain (Obama’s presidential opponent in 2008 and another popular Twitter user) has himself sent a tweet?
A politician personally tweeting is the exception, not the norm.
I’d much rather national level politicians did things like run the country rather than twitter…
Their are a few local politicians here in the UK I know do tweet themselves, but national politicians are just info sources
I’d rather they just twittered. Then we wouldn’t be at War.
mccain can’t actually type the tweets out on his iphone because of his injuries as a pow, but there is numerous accounts in the media that mccain dictates tweets he wants to send.
“Admit” sounds as though he was accused of something and/or is owning up to doing or not doing something that is looked at in a negative light.
Unless he’s ever went on record and stated it was him actually tweeting or purposefully led people to believe it was him tweeting, then I’m not sure “admit” is the right word here.
Yeah, I’m splitting hairs. Having said that, it is kind of disappointing to know it’s not really him.
So not to be a typical TC commenter, MG, but the meat here is in the last paragraph. I hope you plan on following up with that paragraph as a solid in depth piece instead of irrelevant stuff like whether the President used Twitter.
Not trying to be that guy, but come on… really?
If you guys do a follow up post on the internet censorship part… please please please ping @KaiserKuo
The guy knows his stuff.
Thank you.
I think Twitter should make more badges for people’s accounts.
Beyond just “Verified Account” which their currently only giving to people who have had impersonation issues/need validation of some sort.
I’ve also seen something like “Translator”, not sure what that it.
Anyway, they should have a badge that your can get if you actually Tweet stuff personally.
Other accounts, like @Obama or @GuyKawasaki wouldn’t get the badge.
+1
BarackObama shouldn’t qualify as a “verified account.”
agree…
how can we qualify his twitter account as verified when we don’t even know if he’s a verified U.S citizen ?
in full agreement with spencer’s plan.
this may be the truth, and we may know that already in our mind, but when this is said out by Obama himself, we are still disappointed.
Internet censorship does suck! I currently live in a country (in the middle east) which also has quite strong censorship. If for example I wanted to read an article that had “sussex” or anything that contains the letters s-e-x consecutively in the URL I would have to VPN through the UK/US… Having come from quite liberal countries UK and Aus it is really frustrating!
Nice lie. How the hell did you post that here then? And how are you reading it now? Unless you’re using a VPN right now. Which you didn’t mention. You fail anyways for living in the middle east.
I didn’t say anything about not being able to comment the words or letters. All I said was that when those letters appear in a URL the site is then blocked (by the government) and no I am not using VPN right now.
I read a comment recently on TC saying (paraphrase): “It’s interesting how the idiots always appear to be Anonymous”… Quite true in your case by the sound of it mate!
That mean Twitter is not interesting enough.
This doesn’t come as a surprise to me. In a prior post on TechCrunch, I read that the White House DOES NOT ACTUALLY use the @BarackObama account.
The DNC does.
So technically…some DNC aide is humbled.
Yeah, pre-election. Idiot.
Actually, it looks like you’re right
That means I’m the idiot. :-0
It’s time we stop all the fighting and recognize who is dividing us all. We need to come together, and we need to know why we must. Watch “The Arrivals” http://www.wake....com/Videos.asp Pass this link on to everyone you know. We don’t have much time so please take a little time to free yourself
So. It’s like that guy that was supposed to be the FIRST PERSON EVER TO TWEET FROM SPACE but he never actually tweeted. What was that guys name, again? *shrug*
guy laliberte?
or was it one of NASA’s astronauts?
i don’t know. i’m sure i saw/heard this on the news but i can’t remember.
thanks for the “who gives a shit” tone in you comment
.
So, essentially, you are following BarackObama the brand and not the person. While the news is not surprising, it highlights a potential failure in the Twitter model. When tweets are posted with the intent of appearing as though they are from the source, trust in the outlet is diminished.
Most reasonable people can understand this particular proxy for the President, but there should be significant disclosure. The “verified account” status of the account should be revoked. It’s not really him, as he has publicly stated.
According to TPM, the Democratic National Committee “took over the @BarackObama Twitter handle after President Obama’s inauguration”. If this is true I’m not even sure it’s coming from within the White House.
http://j.mp/42Qo9Z
I have spoken to a number of folks in Congress that actually send their own tweets, so it is unusual that during the campaign President Obama would not have ever sent a single tweet on his own. And his comment that his thumbs were not dexterous enough is specious to say the least. He was a very heavy user of is Blackberry before becoming President, and there was a quite a stir when he became the first sitting President to use one…
As an important clarification to an error in the article, the Whitehouse communications team only send tweets from the official Whitehouse Twitter account. There are very strict rules that regulate the mingling of official accounts with campaign and personal accounts. @BarackObama is the account of the Obama political campaign. @WhiteHouse is the account of the Whitehouse. Apparently there is no actual account for Barack Obama…
The guy’s a complete joke; I believed in the guy, but now I am the sucker. Just re-affirms my thoughts after I went to a comedy club in NYC this weekend – when the comedian said “how about it for Barack Obama”? Everyone booed. IN NYC. REALLY.
As a Chinese, when people asking for Internet freedom to Obama, It only can be a tragedy (or 杯具 in Chinese) for Chinese people.
At least you guys still have your land. All we have are some casinos…
My Chinese friend said he was sad
欧巴马承认他自己不使用twitter
I know for a fact that not only the President but the VP as well of my wife’s country use Facebook – personally (as in, no, they don’t have staff running those accounts for them, etc).
However…this is a small place I’m talking about (Maldives) where in the US…we have layers and layers of staff to do things…if the President would tweet about what kind of TP they have in the white house restroom…
…wouldn’t everybody be complaining that he was wasting our money?? I know I would be, and I voted for the guy.
There’s a Obama Take Away pizza and kebab shop in my town, with his picture eating a slice of pizza. Are you suggesting he was never here and never ate that pizza?
Unbelievable.
Are you suggesting that there was no attempt to make people believe Obama was contributing to his own Twitter page?
Just another curtain with another shadowy figure behind it……
Surprise.
A Twitter story.
twitter blows
Anybody really surprised that he has been misleading the masses on this issue as well?? Hang on folks, I’m sure there will be other “revelations” as time progresses.
Maybe the poor guy has got better things to do than read the endless dribble that is broadcast on twitter?
Just a thought.
this is no surprise, what makes you think the president is so free of time, and twittering, facebooking, linkedin-ing, it is just another pr
Unbelievable that he isn’t using Twitter at all. But I’m glad he is writing me on FB and MySpace
Serious, scary that some people really thought it would be Obama himself sitting in front of a computer and sending out tweets.
But well, that’s the “MySpace generation”. Many still think they chat with their celebrities on MySpace and other social networks. Sad sad sad and scary. No wonder why phishing is such a trend. People believe in anything lol
hahaha. yeah. i happen to think it’s completely weird that he would be spending so much time on all these platforms but i’m sure he’s web connected and in the know how about products. anyways what i find hilarious, depressing and absolutely godforsaking disgusting is the cnn piece they had on the situation room today where abbi boudreau or whoever that web/tech media girl is (she does the same thing that josh levs does on the weekend. i’m like is this actually a job you get paid for? really?) where she compiled some of the comments that were sent to the government website for the president to answer. i can’t believe people actually write that stuff. “i love you, please friend me on fb or w/e {insert crap here}”…are people really that dumb?
LOL. Seems people are more interesting of Obama himself than the censorship.
Twitter tends to be boring. I’m sure Obama has to be efficient in his use of the Internet and make it count.
Scientology.org ads ? nice…..
http://help.twi...7/entries/18366
Let’s see how Twitter handles this situation.
I for one am happy that the leader of the free world doesn’t spend his valuable time on such a baseless past-time. Maybe TC should take note and stop (or at least somewhat curtail) the twitterporn.
I’d like to think he’s too busy to use twitter…
The president of the USA has NEVER use Twitter. Surly you jest.. this just CANT be true!
that he never used twitter doesn’t mean the tweets didn’t originate from him.
Although the staffer then should have prefixed the tweets with “OH”
So What about Senator Schwarzenegger then ? http://twitter..../Schwarzenegger , is he the real Schwarzenegger twittering or not ..?
First Miley Cyrus quits and now this, Twitter is tainted and I’m starting to lose faith in the service. I’m not being serious! I would suspect he has to take this stance being the President even if he is an active user just in case anything untoward should be published!
I don’t think anybody expects/believes that Obama sends out all his own tweets or facebook posts. The real “revelation” is that he’s never made a single tweet, which takes all of about 5 seconds
Exactly. It is obviously quite likely that he didn’t write all 418 tweets by himself, but I’m sure most of his followers expected at least a couple to come from him directly (the “Humbled” one is a perfect example of what I mean).
Is it really truly stupid of me to believe that the @BarackObama account is actually Barack Obama’s twitter account?
1. The account bears his name and hasn’t been reported as an impersonation (see http://bit.ly/7vjFX)
2. The account is verified by Twitter to be authentic
3. The account description says “44th President of the United States”, not “Official Democratic National Committee account for use on the President’s behalf”
I’m still rooting for him, but this doesn’t exactly scream “transparency” to me.
1. The account bears his name and hasn’t been reported as an impersonation (see http://bit.ly/7vjFX)
2. The account is verified by Twitter to be authentic
3. The account description says “44th President of the United States”, not “Official Democratic National Committee account for use on the President’s behalf”
Here’s the video of Obama defending Twitter in China:
http://www.gotc...r-in-china.html
What’s this twitter thing everyones always talking about?
Why is this a surprise? I laughed a few days ago when someone wrote about Obama’s masterfully written tweets. He’s working on a lot of big issues and has a team of people helping him. I’m surprised people think they’re connected to the man directly vs his campaign.
This makes the “humbled” tweet really interesting.
Makes me rage actually.
I “PR Campaign” was launched to demonstrate Obama was humbled without the man even knowing. It was all for show? WTF Really? Don’t play us like that. We’ll vote your ass out!
Thomas Gensemer of Blue State Digital ( the architect of Obama’s pre election online strategy said this back in February 2009 at a lecture in London). Good to see it affirmed by the man himself..
The Chinese government wants global business, they want to be more powerful, and they want more influence, yet they block their own people from free trade of thoughts and ideas.
I know it’s not all-inclusive but the censorship of media is hidden from a majority of the Chinese. I’m surprised the Olympics didn’t have more of an impact in opening their eyes. Hopefully articles like this one can help in a small way.
Mark Hanover
http://www.ProxyHeaven.CN
looks like those 2.6 million sheep have been misled.
did people really think it was him???
real obama account has protected tweets, probably President keep that account safe to tweet after the presidency…..+1
he is too busy to tweeting…
So much for “an unprecedented level of transparency” (again).
MG must be really pissed at him. Not only does he not use twitter, he doesn’t even use an iphone. I love barack