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Home / World

Twitter worker who (briefly) deleted Donald Trump's account was on last day

Charis Chang
news.com.au·
3 Nov, 2017 03:31 AM3 mins to read

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Is Trump's twitter no more? Photo / Twitter

Is Trump's twitter no more? Photo / Twitter

The disappearance of Donald Trump's Twitter account appears to have been a deliberate act done by an employee on their last day of work.

Twitter's government and elections team has revealed further details about what happened to the US President's account and why it vanished for 11 minutes.

It said Mr Trump's account was deactivated by a "Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's 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

— TwitterGov (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

It didn't take long for praise to pour in for the employee's actions.

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This is my best moment of 2017. pic.twitter.com/LNKGKwWBVm

— 😷Karmageddon😷 (@TinaMcGugan) November 3, 2017

pic.twitter.com/ZR0EaIm9fV

— Oldman Talking 🌊 🇨🇦 (@SonofaMitchToo) November 3, 2017

pic.twitter.com/MycNOKXYS5

— Julia (@gray_jedi_) November 3, 2017

This employee’s last day: pic.twitter.com/TaNoqhgdxU

— Cristian Farias (@cristianafarias) November 3, 2017

Earlier Twitter said the President's account was "inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee".

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.

— TwitterGov (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017

"The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored," it tweeted. "We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again."
The disappearance of Mr Trump's account caused a frenzy online.

goddamn it. well, now we all know how la la land felt

— demi adejuyigbe (@electrolemon) November 2, 2017

About 10am AEDT those who went on to the US President's page got an error message saying: "Sorry, that page doesn't exist".

But just a few minutes later it reappeared. Mr Trump's Twitter did not acknowledge the temporary disappearance and later posted a tweet about tax cuts.

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About half an hour earlier, Mr Trump had tweeted a video about his nomination of Jerome Powell to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

He had also posted a number of tweets about the move of Broadcom headquarters back to the US and the cancellation of the diversity visa lottery program following the New York truck rampage.

Overnight Mr Trump drew criticism for his comments that the alleged driver should be sent to Guantánamo Bay detention camp and get the death penalty.

The disappearance of Mr Trump's account sparked speculation about whether it was deleted by Twitter or if the President did it himself. Some simply rejoiced in the President's brief absence from social media.

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