Twitter worker deactivates Trump’s account, company restores in minutes

President Donald Trump laughed off a shutdown of his Twitter account this week, initially described by the company as “human error” but later revealed to have been done on purpose.

The 11-minute blackout Thursday evening was attributed to a customer support employee who was working his or her final shift.

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 called the worker “rogue” in a Friday morning tweet:

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

But he had begun tweeting shortly after his account was reactivated, sharing his opinion on the Republicans’ tax cut rollout and hyping an upcoming TV interview, among other postings.

BuzzFeed News reported a former Twitter worker said many employees have the means to suspend a user’s account but not nearly as many can deactivate an account.

Trump, who famously tweets day and night, has amassed 36,000 tweets since joining in March 2009.

His account has nearly 42 million followers.

The company has not identified the former employee.

The San Francisco-based social-media networking service has shut down accounts before, citing violation of its rules; recently, actress Rose McGowan’s account was suspended after she posted blistering condemnations of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein on Instagram.

Weinstein is the subject of sexual misconduct allegations, including rape. McGowan is one of his accusers.

Twitter told the Guardian that McGowan has shared someone else’s private information, grounds for suspension.

Her account was restored after 12 hours.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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