In this week’s cover story of The New York Times Magazine, former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) suggested that the 2011 sexting scandal that ultimately ended his career in Congress could have been avoided had Twitter never been created.
Weiner, who admitted in the interview to be considering a run in New York City’s mayoral race, said the instant feedback offered by the social media network appealed to him.
“You know, like spin the wheel! Find someone to say something to you! And if it wasn’t 2011 and it didn’t exist, it’s not like I would have gone out cruising bars or something like that,” Weiner said. “It was just something that technology made possible and it became possible for me to do stupid things. I mean, the thing I did, and the damage that I did, not only hadn’t it been done before, but it wasn’t possible to do it before.”
The former New York lawmaker resigned from office in 2011 after it was revealed that he had used Twitter to send sexually suggestive pictures to various women. But he told the Times that he didn’t send those pictures because he stopped loving his wife, Huma Abedin, an aide to Hillary Clinton.
“It’s clear it wasn’t because I didn’t love Huma,” Weiner said. “It wasn’t because there’s anything about my relationship with Huma that was missing that I was looking for elsewhere. Even that would be pat, kind of understandable on some level.”
Read the piece here.
