November 03, 2017
Thursday evening President Donald Trump’s notorious Twitter account vanished from the social media site for a mysterious 11 minutes.
The brief hiatus sparked a flurry of both joyous and speculative Tweets as users wondered what caused the deactivation.
WE’RE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
— demi adejuyigbe (@electrolemon) November 2, 2017
POLL: Why is Trump's twitter account gone?
— Rowan Kaiser (@RowanKaiser) November 2, 2017
Shortly after the president’s Twitter account was reactivated, word broke that it was actually a departing Twitter employee who deactivated the account on their way out.
“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,” Twitter Government tweeted Thursday. “We are conducting a full internal review.”
Early Friday Trump, predictably, took to Twitter to comment on the incident as the #RogueTwitterEmployee hashtag gained some traction.
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
Thank you, #RogueTwitterEmployee, for making America great again for 11 glorious minutes. pic.twitter.com/LFhCoIKwc7
— Sharon (@Mimi_GettingFit) November 3, 2017
Eleven minutes of peace in this nation!! Best time in 🇺🇸 since almost exactly a year ago!
— Jodi Vale (@JodiValeOnAir) November 3, 2017
Thanks, #roguetwitteremployee
For the briefest of moments, Donald Trump's twitter was deactivated. And there was rejoicing. Then it was reactivated, and we despaired.
— Rob M. | Tokkan (@tokkanram) 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 frequent usage of his personal Twitter account – not the official @POTUS handle – has garnered criticism before he was even inaugurated, and has only drawn deeper backlash as he uses the social media platform to announce major policy updates, such as the transgender military ban, or speak to critics in a manner that some argue conflicts with Twitter’s usage rules.
His language in a Tweet from September, for example, wherein he posited North Korea “won’t be around much longer,” was considered a declaration of war by the country’s foreign minister, who then argued that North Korea had a right to shoot U.S. bombers even if they aren’t in the country’s airspace.
Reuters also draws a connection between the Twitter account’s brief deactivation and the criticism some social media companies, including Twitter, have faced in not doing enough to curb the spread of Russian propaganda and false news shared on their platforms.
