REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
byCharlie Nash3 Nov 20170
Prominent users on Twitter have expressed concern after a disgruntled customer service employee at the company temporarily removed President Trump’s account.
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
“It is shocking that some random Twitter employee could shut down the president’s account. What if they instead had tweeted fake messages?” posted Politico Editor-In-Chief Blake Hounshell
“Curious what other things random twitter employees can do: Can they read our DMs too?” added Oliver Darcy, a senior reporter at CNN.
Free speech social network Gab also weighed in on the incident, declaring, “A random triggered customer service employee at Twitter can ban the President of the United States. Let that sink in.”
“If a random customer support employee at Twitter can delete the President’s account, could they also tweet as him?” they continued. “Imagine the consequences.”
Harlan Z. Hill, an advisory board member for Donald J. Trump for President, and actor James Woods also expressed concern over the incident, while others used the opportunity to call for the decentralization of the internet.
If some random Twitter support staff can disable the President’s account, what can they do to the rest of us? https://t.co/RmymERWPZf
— Harlan Z. Hill (@Harlan) November 3, 2017
So any Silicon Valley employee could disrupt service or disseminate private info if he doesn’t like your politics? https://t.co/d4GdUYn6hs
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) November 3, 2017
One disgruntled employee was able to throw us into chaos as a prank on their way out the door.
Decentralize social media now.
— Neeraj K. Agrawal (@NeerajKA) November 3, 2017
In all seriousness, security on the president's Twitter feed is not the worst idea for a Senate hearing. Potential for sabotage is high.
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) November 3, 2017
After President Trump’s Twitter account was offline for around eleven minutes on Thursday, Twitter revealed that a rogue customer service employee had been behind the incident.
“Earlier today [President Trump’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,” the company claimed in a statement, before later adding, “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.”
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington and Gab @Nash, or like his page at Facebook.
