Fulfilling the fantasy of anyone who has ever wished they could just pull the plug on President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, a departing Twitter employee did just that on Thursday.
For 11 minutes, the world was deprived of any new musings from @realdonaldtrump.
A blue screen announced, “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!” But if ever there was a reason for Twitter to not apologize for something.
Initially, the @TwitterGov account — charged with providing updates from the company’s Government and Elections team — said the inadvertent deactivation was caused by human error and that the social media giant was taking steps to make sure it didn’t happen again.
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
But by 7 p.m., Twitter had learned that a customer support employee, on their last day of work, pulled the stunt. Twitter promised a “full internal review.”
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
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
But Twitter, as in the people on Twitter, wanted Twitter the company to promise that person a raise and more. Reaction on the platform was swift and GIF-filled and relentless.
Is this what all that winning looks like?
— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) November 3, 2017
Not all heroes wear capes.
— David Betz (@DFBetz) November 3, 2017
Somebody buy that employee a beer! So much winning.??
— Dianne (@Dianne658) November 3, 2017
Let’s hope the departing employee’s next job is with the IRS.
— Romenesko (@romenesko) November 3, 2017
— ivey (@evelezce) November 3, 2017
Some of us didn’t witness this. Kindly delete it again so we can all enjoy.
— Norm Kelly (@norm) November 3, 2017
He was leaving his last day of work feeling like… pic.twitter.com/KyZtxEpB19
— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) November 3, 2017
please post their amazon wishlist
— Lapsed Pacifist ? (@NoraReed) November 3, 2017
I think we just came together as a nation for 23 seconds.
— Madeline Hill (@mad_hill) November 2, 2017
Those few precious minutes were like when Andy played the opera record over the Shawshank PA system.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 2, 2017