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Cape Town – US whisleblower Edward Snowden has opened a Twitter account and quickly gathered thousands of followers.
Snowden, who shot to fame for revealing details of US government spying on internet users as well as world leaders opened his account with one tweet that was retweeted 95 000 times.
Here is his first tweet:
Snowden, who fled to Hong Kong and then to Russia to escape US prosecution, had 924 000 followers by Wednesday but he follows just one account: The US National Security Agency.
Revelations from Snowden that the NSA routinely conducted a dragnet for personal data has resulted in some internet users switching to private web browsing technologies.
Traffic to anonymous search engine DuckDuckGo saw a spike in traffic that continues on an upward trajectory.
Spying fears have also seen the expansion of Jolla’s Sailfish operating system in SA as a counter to the dominance of Google Android OS.
"Africa deserves to have its own independent mobile ecosystem. Current development with only one mobile OS is leading to digital colonialisation, and it must be avoided. That is why we see strong interest from local players to join the agenda," said Jolla chair Dr Antti Saarnio of the operating system which is supported by Cell C in SA.
- Follow Duncan on Twitter
Tweets by @Snowden
