Barack Obama's new Twitter handle falls victim to racist responses

United States President Barack Obama's first official Twitter post on Monday garnered varied response from Twitterati. While many responses were positive and welcoming, the account @POTUS attracted a lot of racist posts and replies, the New York Times reported.

The posts were laced with racist slurs. A few called Obama a "black monkey" and some asked him to kill himself. One of the hate posts included a picture of Obama's famous campaign poster but with a slight alteration, in the altered picture his neck was in a noose and instead of 'HOPE' written at the bottom, the word 'ROPE' was displayed, NYT said. 

A Twitter user by the account name of @jeffgully49, who had posted images of Mr Obama in a noose, on Thursday posted that after his post to Obama's account the Secret Service paid a visit to his home. 

The US President's @POTUS account is an acronym of the 'President of United States'. According to a White House aid, Obama opened the social networking acount for it to "serve as a new way for President Obama to engage directly with the American people, with tweets coming exclusively from him." 

Obama had posted a cheerful, inaugural message from his account on Monday saying, "Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really!”

Hello, Twitter! It's Barack. Really! Six years in, they're finally giving me my own account.

— President Obama (@POTUS) May 18, 2015

Also Read: US President Barack Obama creates own Twitter account