GOP's Pataki Trolls 'Traitor' Snowden in Twitter Debut

Edward Snowden joined Twitter on Tuesday and along with the more than 800,000 followers he racked up within hours, he attracted the wrath of a man the Guardian calls his "first Twitter troll"—George Pataki. The bottom-of-the-pack GOP presidential candidate tweeted: "Some say you have courage, I saw real courage on #Sept 11. You are just a traitor who put American lives at risk." In a follow-up tweet to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, the former New York governor said Twitter is a "great American company that should not give a platform to terrorists or traitors."

Dorsey seems unlikely to heed Pataki's call to ban Snowden from Twitter: CNN reports that he tweeted a welcome to Snowden, and the Intercept reports that Twitter agreed to give Snowden the @snowden handle, which had belonged to a dormant user. Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists who received confidential NSA files from Snowden, was among those mocking Pataki, Mediaite reports. "Hi, I'm running for President. My support in all polls is an asterisk," he tweeted. "And I'm here to say who should & shouldn't be allowed on Twitter." So far, the only account Snowden is following is that of his former employer, the NSA. (More Edward Snowden stories.)