Giuliani Misses a Space on Twitter and Things Spiral

'G-20.In' looked like a hyperlink to Twitter
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 5, 2018 8:29 AM CST
Giuliani Misses a Space on Twitter and Things Spiral
In this Sept. 26, 2016, file photo, former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani, kisses Miriam Adelson's hand as he arrives for the presidential debate between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump at Hofstra University.   (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

It's a question that fervently divides us: one space after a period or two? For Rudy Giuliani, the big issue is that there were zero. What started as a Friday typo has spiraled into a prank and then accusations of a conspiracy. Here's the timeline:

  • On Friday, Giuliani took to Twitter to rail against Robert Mueller in a five-sentence tweet. Here it is, exactly as written. Pay attention to the spacing: "Mueller filed an indictment just as the President left for G-20.In July he indicted the Russians who will never come here just before he left for Helsinki.Either could have been done earlier or later. Out of control!Supervision please?
  • In three instances, Giuliani failed to insert a space between two sentences. On the first occasion, what resulted was "G-20.In," which looked to Twitter like a hyperlink, as ".in" is the Internet country code for India, reports the Washington Post—so it was automatically made into a clickable link.
  • Jason Velazquez knew it was an oops, but clicked on the link anyway, saw no one owned it, scooped it up for roughly $6, and used it to display a white sentence on a black background: "Donald J. Trump is a traitor to our country." He tells CNET the whole process took him 15 minutes, and "I did it, mostly, because I could."

  • Velazquez, 37, tweeted about what he had done. Others took note, per the Post, including Alyssa Milano and former Mexican president Vicente Fox, who tweeted "whoever is behind the g-20.in, is a godd--- genius."
  • Giuliani noticed by Tuesday night, at which point he tweeted a gripe with Twitter itself: "Twitter allowed someone to invade my text with a disgusting anti-President message. The same thing-period no space-occurred later and it didn't happen. Don't tell me they are not committed cardcarrying anti-Trumpers. Time Magazine also may fit that description. FAIRNESS PLEASE."
  • Twitter essentially said that's ludicrous as it cannot and does not edit tweets. Here's its statement to the New York Times: "The accusation that we're artificially injecting something into a tweet is completely false."
  • The Times highlights what many Twitter users are highlighting: The fact that Giuliani first joined the Trump administration as a cybersecurity adviser. CNET rounds up some of the tweeted replies to Giuliani in that vein (read them here), like this one: "Did you try unplugging it then plugging it back in?"
(More Rudy Giuliani stories.)

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