A strange tweet from the official US Strategic Command account set off a whole lot of confusion, but the Daily Dot has uncovered the mystery. It seems a staffer's "very young child" got access to the keyboard and typed gibberish. Specifically, the child typed ";l;;gmlxzssaw" and managed to hit the send button on Sunday night. Because the agency is responsible for the nation's nuclear arsenal, the tweet quickly went viral, notes the Hill. People jokingly wondered whether the letters were nuclear launch codes or communication with aliens, and not-so-jokingly wondered whether the vital agency had been hacked. StratCom followed up with another tweet about 30 minutes later, saying, "Apologizes for any confusion. Please disregard this post." Both tweets have been deleted.
The Daily Dot website filed a formal Freedom of Information Act request to get an explanation, and the agency came clean in a response: "The Command's Twitter manager, while in a telework status, momentarily left the Command's Twitter account open and unattended," it reads. "His very young child took advantage of the situation and started playing with the keys and unfortunately, and unknowingly, posted the tweet." Mediaite rounds up some of the choice reactions to the snafu, including this one: "Not everyone has to be on Twitter. Especially people who could accidentally start nuclear wars. But I'm just old-fashioned, I guess." (It's not the first time the agency's Twitter account has raised eyebrows.)
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