Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer became a free speech hero when he was jailed for a year after revealing a hole in iPad security and exposing thousands of AT&T customers’ details back in 2010. His sentence was ultimately quashed.
Since then he’s become even more well-known as one of the Web’s most notorious trolls, which he combines with a taste for white supremacist ideology, going so far as to get a huge swastika tattoo.
His latest trick is gaming Twitter’s self-service ad console to push a tweet espousing his views into the timelines of women and ethnic minorities.
https://twitter.com/rabite/status/595243888346079233
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Auernheimer is delighted with the outraged response his stunt is getting – and no doubt with articles like this one – but it does highlight a massive flaw with Twitter’s system.
Asked whether the content of his promoted tweet is against the company’s terms and conditions, he replied:
https://twitter.com/rabite/status/595082395122081792
It looks like his next experiment will be attempting to target specific users:
https://twitter.com/rabite/status/595081005859524608
I’ve contacted Twitter to ask what it makes of Auernheimer’s antics. The “day 1” in the link to his Storify documenting the trolling suggests there’s more to come.
Update: And here’s what he had to say after seeing this article
https://twitter.com/rabite/status/595291882663518208
Update: TNW understands the tweets were removed under Twitter’s hate speech/sensitive content policy. Of course, by then the damage was already done.
Read next: Twitter’s new anti-abuse measures speed up action against harmful users
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