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Obama: 'I have never used Twitter'
President Barack Obama, the source of one of the world's most-followed Twitter accounts, said Monday he's never used the microblogging service.
During a town hall meeting with students in Shanghai, China, the president conceded he's never personally used Twitter, and encouraged more open internet access in China, where internet censorship runs rampant.
"First of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter," Obama told students in response to a question submitted online and conveyed by his ambassador, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R).
"I noticed that young people -- they're very busy with all these electronics," the president joked. "My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone."
The "@BarackObama" Twitter feed has nearly 2.7 million followers, and his administered by his political arm, Organizing for America. His campaign was known for its use of social networking tools like Twitter, an ethos which has extended into the Obama administration, where the official "@WhiteHouse" feed has almost 1.5 million followers.
Obama said, though, that everyone should have access to Twitter and blogs and other web services, in a not-so-subtle critique of Chinese crackdowns on non-state media.
