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.
