President Donald Trump’s Twitter megaphone was cut off for 11 minutes on Thursday evening.
A customer service employee at Twitter deactivated Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account on their last day, a Twitter spokesperson said after conducting an investigation. Initially the company thought the deactivation had been an error.
Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
The account disappeared at 6:45 p.m. EST on Thursday and users were met with a page that said @realDonaldTrump doesn’t exist.
— Mitch Mitchell (@SonofaMitchToo) November 3, 2017
Twitter users jumped on the news.
This is my best moment of 2017. pic.twitter.com/LNKGKwWBVm
— I'm Sorry Aunt Lydia (@TinaMcGugan) November 3, 2017
Dear Twitter employee who shut down Trump's Twitter: You made America feel better for 11 minutes. DM me & I will buy you a Pizza Hut pizza. https://t.co/ruzaVBcQp1
— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) November 3, 2017
Happy to say I survived the @realDonaldTrump blackout. All the kids are fine. I'm reporting in as safe.
— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) November 2, 2017
We’ll all remember where we were during the 10 minutes of peace while Donald Trump’s Twitter account was down.
— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) November 2, 2017
"Trump's twitter was reactivated before I could tweet my good gif," she yells at a radioactive slug moments before the earth is destroyed. pic.twitter.com/VscZlA3VVe
— Jen Lewis (@thisjenlewis) November 2, 2017
The account was back up by 7 p.m., according to The Washington Post.
On Friday morning, Trump tweeted to let his followers know that a “rogue employee” had pulled the plug and claimed “the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact,” possibly commenting on the influence or effectiveness of his Twitter presence.
My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2017
Many expressed concern about the national security implications of the stunt.
Seriously, what if this person had tweeted about a fictional nuclear strike on North Korea? https://t.co/TcvpXqXk42
— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) November 3, 2017
Twitter said it is looking into how a customer service employee was able to deactivate the account, which a former employee told BuzzFeed few people at the company have access to do.
Kelly should use this as a strong-arm opportunity to take his fucking phone away for the duration.
You can’t use such a staggeringly uncontrolled and insecure system for national security and official government communication. You just can’t.
Glorious twitter thread about Trump’s twitter (and interview) rants about ‘going after Clinton’ - and what it says about the DOJ - for now. Click to read the whole thread.
I mean ‘seriously’ we should have an investigation into this rogue employee and punish them for taking away Donnie’s twitter account…I mean who DOES that? WAY too much ‘power’…oh holy CRAP it was eleven minutes, it was a joke. After all the garbage he spews over spitter, taking down his account for 11 minutes is some kind of freakin’ crime???
LOL LOL LOL
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
My Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact.
5:51 AM - Nov 3, 2017
13,096 13,096 Replies 12,888 12,888 Retweets 45,300 45,300 likes
You make it sound like Kelly hasn’t gone to the dark side and decided to be actively complicit.
Too bad this former employee/folk hero wasn’t able to delete the entire account in a way that couldn’t be restored.
My mood will lighten once Tramp clears US air space.