Opinion
03 Nov 17

"Rogue" Twitter employee suspends Trump's account

On Thursday 3rd November for the first time since May of 2009, the Twitter account of Donald Trump did not exist.

Suspended at 4pm (ET) by an unnamed Twitter employee on their final day of work, the move meant that for eleven minutes, the world did not see the usual foreign policy quibbling or scathing personal attacks on celebrities. Rather, they saw the peaceful words, "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!"

According to Twitter Government, Trump's page 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."

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

Later clarifying that the act of mercy was performed by a member of customer support, once the President was finally reactivated, he responded by stating,

"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."

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

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

The story, which is not being featured anywhere on Twitter's Moments section still garnered much acclaim from various users online as the unknown customer support employee was applauded for their action.

#HowToBePopularIn4Words
"I deactivated Trump's twitter." pic.twitter.com/Zzf1QIDbDc

— Steve Marmel (@Marmel) November 3, 2017

Good morning to the ex-Twitter employee who shut down Trump’s account temporarily, making the world better. I imagine they departed like... pic.twitter.com/nRuZn75BBz

— April (@ReignOfApril) November 3, 2017