A Twitter employee on the last day of his or her job deactivated Republican President Donald Trump’s Twitter account Thursday — a ploy that lasted 11 minutes and elevated the culprit to “hero” status among those who gushed over the “successful coup.”
Twitter originally said the Trump account outage was the result of “human error” and occurred “inadvertently”:
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
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
Trump’s sometimes provocative tweets have concerned and angered many observers since he took office in January, and the fact that the president’s Twitter account was no longer active — even for a short time — was met with celebration and glee:
Pour one out for the hero who made Twitter good for 11 minutes. They did more for their company’s vision than anyone else ever has. https://t.co/7pdqZuF73K
— Mia Steinberg (@MiaSteinberg) November 3, 2017
the first successful coup in american history was conducted by an intern with fat fingers https://t.co/ynzygH66mO
— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) November 3, 2017
Who are you, mysterious hero? America wants to thank you. https://t.co/YH2HnrBoYi
— Mashable (@mashable) November 3, 2017
To the guy who deactivated Trump’s Twitter (even if only temporarily): History will remember you as a hero.
— PunkDemonNeo (@PDN90) November 3, 2017
Shout out to the Twitter employee who deactivated Donald Trump’s account for 11 mins on his/her last day in the job.
What a hero. pic.twitter.com/I3Y1dij6Fj
— Paddy Power (@paddypower) November 3, 2017
What a hero(ine) ????????????. Deleting Trump’s twitter on last day at work. I can’t imagine how long she/he had wanted/planned to do this …???? pic.twitter.com/K6OEv2IOJE
— tawanda chivese (@TChivese) November 3, 2017
Don’t know about making America great, but an unsung hero made Twitter great for 11 minutes by deactivating Trump’s account..
— Writer Thakur (@IndianWriterV) November 3, 2017
And how did Trump react? Well, Trump answered on Friday morning as only he can:
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