Sashi Tharoor’s tweet among 14 favourites on US govt health care website
By ANIFriday, July 2, 2010
WASHINGTON - The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched a new website, HealthCare.gov, which had a Twitter feed with a list of “favourite tweets”, from Indian politician Sashi Tharoor, rapper Sean P. Diddy Combs and others.
The new web portal provides one with the ability to investigate health insurance plans and provisions of the new health care law, and the HHS also launched a Twitter feed at the handle @healthcaregov.
However the “favourite tweets” in the HealthCare.Gov collection was a little confusing, as they did not have any clear connection to the agency or to health reform, Politico reported.
A tweet from P. Diddy, who tweets at @iamdiddy, dominated the favourite list, accounting for five of HHS’s 14 favourite items.
A November 1, 2009 tweet of his read: “Happy Halloween!!!! CIROC all night long! GO!!!!”
With a follow-up that said: “Get your Halloween right with Ciroc! The smoothest vodka in the game! Let’s go people! Ciroc the official vodka of Halloween! 
boo!”
And a tweet from member of the Indian Parliament, Sashi Tharoor about a delayed flight, read: “On board Air Mauritius, but no takeoff: cargo door was damaged in baggage loading! So all in seats waiting 2 see if Airbus will clear flight”.
Other favourites included one from erstwhile Republican California Senate candidate Tom Campell, and one from Mashable, the social media website.
The account already has 35 followers, but HHS had had the account locked, meaning that tweets were private and could only be read by approved Twitter users.
HHS removed the favourites lists upon being questioned, and a spokesperson subsequently said that the favourites were a glitch.
When the agency was launching HealthCare.Gov, it wanted a Twitter handle to match. The @healthcaregov account was already taken but inactive, so HHS got permission from the Twitter user to take over the account.
It cleared out most of the content but missed the favourites list, the spokesperson added. (ANI)
