‘Very Young Child’ ‘Hijacks’ Twitter Account of US Nuclear Command, Tweets Gibberish
The enigmatic, or, as it turned out, gibberish tweet from the US Strategic Command’s Twitter acount, resulted from a young child’s play with an unattended computer keyboard. Photo: Twitter snapshop, the Daily Dot
A young child briefly “hijacked” the Twitter account of the US Strategic Command, the US government agency in charge of safeguarding America’s nuclear weapons.
The child tweeted gibberish from the US Strategic Command account, “@USSTRATCOM”, with the tweet getting deleted shortly thereafter with an apology.
“;l;;gmlxzssaw,“ read the brief but problematic tweet from the account of the agency responsible for US nukes.
“[US Strategic Command] apologizes for any confusion. Please disregard this post,” @USSTRATCOM tweeted precisely 30 minutes after the child’s gibberish message.
It did not reveal, however, the source of the gibberish tweet.
The gibberish tweet and the apology from @USSTRATCOM 30 minutes later. Photo: Twitter snapshop, the Daily Dot
The reason for the gibberish tweet was exposed by the news site The Daily Dot, which was quick to file a Freedom of Information request with the US Strategic Command, and got a very swift response explaining the accident.
Journalist Mike Thalen revealed on Twitter that the response under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) came exactly 4 hours and 42 minutes after the filing of the request.
USSTRATCOM’s FOIA officer stated that the tweet had been made when the agency’s Twitter manager momentarily left his computer unattended.
Then his “very young child” grabbed hold of the computer keyboard, taking “advantage of the situation” to post a tweet.
“The Command’s Twitter manager, while in a telework status, momentarily left the Command’s Twitter account open and unattended,” the US Strategic Command said.
“His very young child took advantage of the situation and started playing with the keys and unfortunately, and unknowingly, posted the tweet,” US nuclear weapon agency added.
The US Strategic Command further emphasized that the gibberish tweet was not the result of a hacking incident.
“Absolutely nothing nefarious occurred, i.e., no hacking of our Twitter account,” the response added.
“The post was discovered and notice to delete it occurred telephonically,“ the US Strategic Command said.
The response by the US Strategic Command under the Freedom of Information Act filed by The Daily Dot journalist Mikael Thalen. Photo: The Daily Dot
Some Twitter users thought the accident with the “very young child” taking charge of the Twitter account of the US nuclear weapon agency was remarkably funny.
“At least the kid didn’t have the launch codes,” wrote one Twitter user.
“Good thing he didn’t have a teenager who just thought his dad (not mom, she knows better) was playing World of Warcraft,” wrote another.
“‘Notice to delete it occurred telephonically’ is a very good euphemism for the boss yelling at you,” wrote another.
“Shall we play a game of global thermonuclear war,” another Twitter user remarked.
Apparently, however, followers of the QAnon conspiracy did not find the gibberish tweet from the US Strategic Command funny but sought to weave into their conspiracy theory deciding that it was a cryptogram.
“Some anons ran it through a cryptographic decipher software and one option that came up from the cryptogram was “Q ACQUITTED”. Make of that what you will. Could be something, could be nothing,” one Twitter user wrote.
A tweet explaining how followers of the QAnon conspiracy considered the child’s gibberish tweet from the US Strategic Command to be a cryptogram, possibly meaning “Q ACQUITTED”. Photo: Twitter snapshot
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Ivan Dikov, the founder of HeartlandHinterland.com, is the author of the book “Got Nukes, Mr. Dictator? You Hold on to Them!“, among other books.
