We delivered the news yesterday that Twitter admitted to censoring anti-Hillary news during the election. Well, last night they did far worse.
The Twitterverse was shocked last night at around 7 pm upon discovering that President Trump’s Twitter account, with its 42 million followers and 36,000 tweets, had disappeared.
What did it all mean?!
Unclear what's happening with Trump's personal Twitter account. It appears to be offline at the moment. Asking White House… pic.twitter.com/U1Q3tB98Cn
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) November 2, 2017
Of course, this was YUGE news! The media was beside themselves… for exactly 11 minutes. Then President Trump’s account mysteriously reappeared and Twitter put out a statement:
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
Then, two hours later, they followed up with this big news – it wasn’t “inadvertent” at all, but purposely done by an employee on his way out the door who wanted to go out in a blaze of anti-Trump glory:
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
The president himself seemed unfazed by it all. He started tweeting again an hour later and didn’t even mention his account going offline, which I have to admit is odd. Maybe he didn’t realize it. Would President Trump declare war on Twitter ON Twitter?
We already know Twitter is biased against Trump and conservatives. They are quick to put out new policies that target and ban conservatives. Along with yesterday’s revelation that Twitter hid key hashtags like #PodestaEmails and #DNCLeak from users during the election, Twitter also recently censored a pro-life ad from Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn for being too “inflammatory” and “negative.”
But Twitter is arguably President Trump’s most powerful (and favorite) platform. It seems unlikely that he would turn against them, even if their employees hate him. Plus it’s fun to drive the liberals crazy.
This short-lived shutdown is also raising other questions. If an employee is able to shut down Trump’s Twitter account, could they also take control of it? What would that mean for world affairs? Think about it: a rogue Twitter employee commandeering Trump’s account and declaring war on North Korea. It could upend our entire world order.
Seriously, what if this person had tweeted about a fictional nuclear strike on North Korea? https://t.co/TcvpXqXk42
— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) November 3, 2017
This shutdown raises serious questions about Twitter and the company’s ability to thwart disgruntled or reckless employees.
What do you think? Is it too dangerous to allow Twitter access to Donald Trump’s account? Tell us your thoughts below and share this on Facebook (and Twitter) now!
