Bad Twitter management at the lowest levels of government can mar the reputations of people at the highest levels — like Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Medvedev endured a bout of bad publicity this week when an aide posted an obscene retweet under Medvedev’s name. Worse, the tweet was aimed at Alexei Navalny, a key player in protests against Russia’s government. Navalny was arrested this week and sentenced to 15 days in jail.

The Kremlin blamed Medvedev’s errant retweet on “an unnamed member of the president’s technical staff” who will be punished. The tweet was quickly deleted but not quickly enough to keep alert followers from taking screen shots of it.

Konstantin Rykov, a member of Russia’s Parliament, wrote the original tweet, but apparently some vulgar tweets aren’t newsworthy until world leaders retweet them.