Twitter exec's account fires off spam posts

San Francisco (AFP) - An official Twitter account for the company's chief financial officer unleashed a barrage of spam posts on Tuesday in what may have been a hack or a glitch.

Anthony Noto's account @anthonynoto for a brief time fired off terse, slangy missives inviting people to click on a link that promised funny video or other reward, depending on the post.

The posts were quickly removed by Twitter.

"His account was sending spam Tweets," a Twitter spokesperson told AFP.

"We've locked the account down and deleted the Tweets."

There was no indication any of Noto's account information was accessed, according to the spokesperson.

Rogue posts in Twitter accounts could be the work of hackers, but they could also be caused by bugs in third-party applications intended to work with the one-to-many messaging service, according to the San Francisco-based company.

Noto has been vexed before by his Twitter account. Late last year he accidentally shot off a public tweet about an acquisition the company was considering.