--- title: Suck It Tweet to Amnesty International Sent By CSIS Intern description: The think tank said it was sent by an intern who thought he was logged into his personal account. canonical: https://time.com/3145199/think-tank-says-its-sorry-for-telling-amnesty-international-to-suck-it-on-twitter/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-19T19:20:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:34.278Z og:title: Think Tank Apologizes to Amnesty International for Telling Them to "Suck It" on Twitter og:description: An intern wrote it og:url: https://time.com/3145199/think-tank-says-its-sorry-for-telling-amnesty-international-to-suck-it-on-twitter/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Think Tank Apologizes to Amnesty International for Telling Them to "Suck It" on Twitter twitter:description: An intern wrote it twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Think Tank Says It's Sorry for Telling Amnesty International to "Suck It" on Twitter by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Aug 19, 2014 7:20 PM UTC by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman Aug 19, 2014 7:20 PM UTC In response to the [ongoing chaos](http://time.com/3141693/ferguson-michael-brown-national-guard/) in Ferguson, Mo., Amnesty International[ posted ](https://twitter.com/amnesty/status/501600372847575040)on Twitter that the United States “can’t tell other countries to improve their records on policing and peaceful assembly if it won’t clean up its own human rights record.” Well, in response to that tweet, the Center for Strategic and International Studies told Amnesty, and we quote, to “suck it.” Behold: CSIS’s original tweet was deleted shortly thereafter, but not before some screenshots were snapped. Turns out it was a classic case of somebody thinking they’re logged into their personal account and really being logged in as their brand. (If you’ve ever handled social media for anyone other than yourself, this is probably your worst nightmare.) “It was sent by a CSIS intern who had access to our account for monitoring purposes,” Andrew Schwartz, senior vice president for external relations at CSIS, [told _Talking Points Memo_](http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/csis-amnesty-international-suck-it-tweet). “Apparently he meant to send something reflecting his personal views from his personal Twitter account.” Soon, the think tank sent out an apology tweet: Well, technically it’s this intern’s human right to tell people to suck it, so maybe we should cut him some slack. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3145199/think-tank-says-its-sorry-for-telling-amnesty-international-to-suck-it-on-twitter/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3145199/think-tank-says-its-sorry-for-telling-amnesty-international-to-suck-it-on-twitter/"},"headline":"Think Tank Says It's Sorry for Telling Amnesty International to \"Suck It\" on Twitter","datePublished":"2014-08-19T19:20:03.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:12:34.278Z","description":"An intern wrote it","url":"https://time.com/3145199/think-tank-says-its-sorry-for-telling-amnesty-international-to-suck-it-on-twitter/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Internet","twitter","Amnesty International"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3145199/think-tank-says-its-sorry-for-telling-amnesty-international-to-suck-it-on-twitter/","name":"Think Tank Says It's Sorry for Telling Amnesty International to \"Suck It\" on Twitter"}}]}] ```