A United States military spy agency is apologizing for a now-deleted tweet that poked fun at China for limiting press access to the Group of 20 summit meeting there. “Classy as always China,” the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Twitter account tweeted and deleted on Saturday. (You can see a screencap of the tweet here.)
CNN joked that the flub was “every social media manager’s worst nightmare: A tweet intended to come from a personal account that instead is sent from that of a government agency.” On Sunday, the DIA apologized, stating that the tweet was not meant to be sent from the @DefenseIntel account.
Earlier today, a tweet regarding a news article was mistakenly posted from this account & does not represent the views of DIA. We apologize.
— DIA (@DefenseIntel) September 4, 2016
The original tweet linked to a New York Times article that detailed confrontations over security protocols and news media access after Air Force One landed on the tarmac in China, as well as “shouting matches” between Secret Service agents and their Chinese counterparts at the West Lake State House, where Obama was to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“I wouldn’t over-crank the significance of it, because, as I said, this is not the first time that these things happened,” Obama said of the tensions. “And it doesn’t just happen here. It happens in a lot of places, including, by the way, sometimes, our allies. Part of it is we also have a much bigger footprint than a lot of other countries. And we’ve got a lot of planes and a lot of helicopters and a lot of cars and a lot of guys, and if you’re a host country, sometimes it may feel a little bit much.”
(Via CNN & New York Times)
