Uh, you probably don’t want to tweet to @POTUS, actually

Twitter, at first glance, is a magical fantasy land -- a utopia where any old egg can freely converse with presidents, pop stars and kings. It is the great democratizer; the global water cooler; the one place where you can say anything to anyone and know it’ll be okay. Consider this your monthly reminder that this is actually NOT the case: On the modern Internet, impressions of anonymity and ephemerality are, well … usually fake. Case in point? After Barack Obama belatedly joined Twitter on May 18 -- in his official, presidential capacity -- dozens of Twitter denizens began tweeting him sex jokes, threats and other unprintable inanities. But the joke’s actually on them: Not only does the Secret Service already monitor Twitter for threats, but the White House is archiving each and every thing @POTUS tweeters say.

Ashley Feinberg flagged this relevant piece of the White House Online Privacy Policy: "On Twitter, the White House automatically archives “tweets” from official White House accounts, “direct messages” sent to or from official White House accounts, and “mentions” (tweets from other users to official White House account)..." In other words, when you tweet “leave Michelle for me @POTUS,” or something even more inappropriate/creepy, that lives in an official White House Archive for eternity (slash, for potential future scrutiny).