Twitter Employee Deactivates Trump’s Account, Walks Off the Job

Many people are sick of President Donald Trump’s Twitter habits, but a Twitter employee took his frustration up to the next level.

On his last day of work, a Twitter employee took matters into his own hands. He deactivated President Donald Trump’s Twitter account before he walked out of the building.  For 11 minutes, Trump’s @RealDonaldTrump account was deactivated, raising serious questions about social media security.

The Washington Post reports the story:

The company has suspended other high-profile accounts in the past for violating its terms and conditions. It has also faced questions over why it has not previously suspended President Trump’s Twitter account for violating its terms of service — a decision it defended by saying that Trump’s position means his messages meet a higher standard for “newsworthiness.”

But there has not been a case where an employee has acted alone to take down the account of a well-known person, seemingly on their own.

The company released a statement, naturally, via Twitter:

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

Then they said, “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.”

However, the response on social media was compassionate — toward the employee:

It was a heroic act, not an error.

— Nick (@NickHennessy) November 3, 2017

Who ever it was deserves a raise.

— Mr NASCAR (@NascarBettor) November 3, 2017

"We have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day" pic.twitter.com/mVB2Pwc8rv

— Jessica Winter (@winterjessica) November 3, 2017

The guy who muted Trump on Twitter… is it too early to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize?

— Duane Swierczynski (@swierczy) November 3, 2017

Since Twitter has been in the news over the way that Russia apparently used Twitter to affect the U.S. election, this presents yet another public relations nightmare.

Image Credit: Flickr