Rogue Twitter Employee Takes Down Donald Trump’s Account

US President Donald Trump’s Twitter account was temporarily switched off by a disgruntled employee who was leaving the company.

According to Twitter, Trump’s profile was inaccessible for just over ten minutes, leaving users unable to read his Tweets or for him to make any new posts.

“Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee,” said Twitter. “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 Trump

It later emerged that the account was deactivated by a customer support employee who was on his last day at Twitter.

Trump has not commented on the incident, but the brief period may have been respite for his detractors. Trump signed up in 2009 had attracted a reputation for controversy long before he became President.

Several users have claimed the President’s posts, which frequently attack opponents, violate Twitter’s terms of use. However Twitter claim that these are newsworthy and therefore permitted.

The social network might be concerned about how easy it was for an individual to take such an action however. Twitter has so far struggled to monetise its influence and user base while some believe it has not taken enough action to stop hate speech.

It has promised a “full internal review.”

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