On Thursday night, as a last act before leaving the company, one Twitter employee reportedly deactivated President Trump’s @realDonaldTrump, CNN is reporting. During the 11 minutes the account was down—around 7 p.m. EDT—anyone who navigated to it was met with “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”
Initially, Twitter released a statement merely saying the account had been taken down as the result of human error. But after further investigation, the company said it was the work of a Twitter customer support employee on his or her last day.
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
President Trump himself acknowledged the takedown on Friday morning, alluding vaguely to the “impact”—whether he meant from his own account or from the employee’s actions is unclear.
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
And even though the deactivation was brief, it didn’t stop the social platform’s users—many of them left-leaning—from erupting with jokes.
Trump’s Twitter was down
We’ve heard the news;
Inadvertently deactivated
Was the term Twitter used.
But why inadvertent?
Why not make it for keeps?
And spare us dangers
His account daily reaps?
So @twitter, how ‘bout it?
Make it right:
Delete @realDonaldTrump
For good tonight— The Seuss is Loose (@SeussIsLoose_) November 3, 2017
history tests are bout to be wild. trump’s twitter really got deactivated for a bit
that’s the most legendary shit i’ve heard this year LOL
— Sky. (@SkyWilliams) November 2, 2017
Trump’s Twitter deactivated for 11 min, and I suddenly thought I’d jumped back into the real timeline where things aren’t so damned absurd.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 3, 2017
That was like .003 Scaramuccis
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) November 2, 2017
Where were you when you heard that Trump’s twitter account had been deleted?
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 2, 2017
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