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Rick Sanchez wages flame war against Muslim Brotherhood Twitter feed

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo’s Twitter feed disappeared for about an hour today following an online sparring match with a feed operated by the office of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy over Jon Stewart’s impassioned defense of Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef. When the embassy’s feed returned, a tweet linking to the Daily Show clip had been ...

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The U.S. Embassy in Cairo's Twitter feed disappeared for about an hour today following an online sparring match with a feed operated by the office of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy over Jon Stewart's impassioned defense of Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef. When the embassy's feed returned, a tweet linking to the Daily Show clip had been deleted, and State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters that embassy officials "came to the conclusion that the decision to tweet it in the first place didn't accord with post management of the site."

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo’s Twitter feed disappeared for about an hour today following an online sparring match with a feed operated by the office of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy over Jon Stewart’s impassioned defense of Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef. When the embassy’s feed returned, a tweet linking to the Daily Show clip had been deleted, and State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters that embassy officials "came to the conclusion that the decision to tweet it in the first place didn’t accord with post management of the site."

There’s bad diplomacy, and then there’s the Twitter fight that followed this afternoon between the Muslim Brotherhood’s English-language Twitter account (@IkhwanWeb) and American radio show host and media personality Rick Sanchez (@RickSanchezTV). The improbable feud started when the Muslim Brotherhood tweeted an Al Jazeera report featuring a comment Sanchez made in 2010 that was widely reported as being anti-Semitic and led to his firing from CNN. The Muslim Brotherhood pointed to the incident as an example of the West’s "double standards" about free speech:

The Muslim Brotherhood’s confusion about the government-ensured rights of an individual vs. the rights of private employees notwithstanding, Sanchez came looking for a fight this afternoon. Armed with a loose understanding of the situation, Sanchez eagerly began trolling @IkhwanWeb.

The Muslim Brotherhood responded, and from there, it was a good, old-fashioned troll fight. @IkhwanWeb was right that Sanchez didn’t have his facts straight, but their defense of Egypt’s freedom of speech rang a bit hollow given the circumstances:

Sanchez then declared victory. Several times.

And that’s today’s installment of how Twitter is making politics weird. Remember, folks: Don’t feed the trolls.

J. Dana Stuster is a policy analyst at the National Security Network. Twitter: @jdanastuster
Tags: Cyber Security & Hacking, Egypt, Foreign & Public Diplomacy, Liberalism, Media, Middle East and North Africa, Politics, Science and Technology

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