Trump’s Twitter Might Have Been Taken Down By A Rogue Employee & Everyone Is Cheering
For a brief, shining moment on Thursday, Nov. 2, President Donald Trump’s Twitter account was deactivated. For approximately 11 minutes shortly before 7 p.m. ET, America didn’t have to worry about what the president might do with an ill-timed 140 characters. And though Twitter said in a statement that evening that the deactivation was caused by “human error,” tweets about human error after Trump’s Twitter went down were skeptical.
Trump’s Twitter account is, quite possibly, the most bizarre political tool in a year of bizarre politics. Though Trump’s tweets are considered official statements according to former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, they rarely (if ever) seem to get the level of consideration and forethought one would expect from a official presidential statement. Instead, the president seems to shoot out off-the-cuff stream of consciousness in bursts of 140 characters, addressing everything from his ongoing feud with North Korea, to threatening posts aimed at the media, to his opinion on protests at NFL games. His tweets often aggravate, or even upend, delicate situations — back in October, he undercut his own Secretary of State’s efforts at diplomacy with North Korea, posting that Sec. Rex Tillerson was “wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man” and using a nickname for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
So it’s no wonder that many people have been calling for Twitter to ban Trump from the social media site for months. On Thursday, when it seemed to have finally happened, people flipped out, tweeting in joy — until about 10 minutes later, when the account quietly reappeared, to much disappointment. With the weight of all the hope on the deactivation, it’s no wonder that when Twitter offered an explanation, many were skeptical.
About an hour after the deactivation, Twitter released a statement saying that Trump’s account was “inadvertently” deactivated due to “human error.”
To which many people went, "sure." *Finger quotes* "Human error."
And some people just wanted to believe in heroes, just for a moment.
But then — it turned out to be true.
At 10 p.m. ET that same night, Twitter released an updated statement about the outage — this time putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of one unidentified employee. "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," the statement said. "We are conducting a full internal review."
And the internet went:
While Twitter provided no other details — it could legitimately have been an honest mistake... on someone's last day... with no professional consequences — the internet had already decided that this was the hero they needed.
Maybe everyone just needed something to believe in.
Basically, what that now-departed Twitter employee just lost in burned bridges, they're making up for in internet admiration.
There are definitely some job applications out there where putting, "I was the person who took down Donald Trump's Twitter account" in your cover letter will probably make up for any lack of references on your resumé.
You can't really blame everyone for getting all excited when they thought they were rid of the president's unfiltered social media presence. Trump's tweets have upended American policy over the ten months he's been in office. From tweeting poorly thought out policy decisions like the supposed transgender military ban to possibly influencing the trial of an accused terrorist by calling for the death penalty, Trump's impulsive social media habits have been throwing everyone for a loop. Alas, it was not to be.
Although Trump's Twitter came back online after only a scant 11 minutes, the moments will live on in Twitter's memories. As will the employee that made it happen — godspeed, wherever you are.
