Twitter is "conducting a full internal review" after President Trump's personal account was "inadvertently deactivated" for a short period of time on Thursday night.
"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," the social media giant tweeted late Thursday about the unusual disruption. "We are conducting a full internal review."
When Trump's account went dark near 7 p.m. ET, users on the popular social media service freaked out:
I'm not usually a person who covers the president's tweets. But. Um.
— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) November 2, 2017
aw man pic.twitter.com/9wWSmZfNec
— darcie wilder (@333333333433333) November 2, 2017
Once Trump's account eventually re-emerged, it didn't stop Twitter from raising more questions:
Where were you when you heard that Trump's twitter account had been deleted?
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) November 2, 2017
Feel like I need to re-evaluate my life choices after reflecting on my reaction to Trump's Twitter.
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 2, 2017
Twitter clarified the original confusion in a tweet Thursday.
"Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee," Twitter Government tweeted. "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."
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
Trump, who superseded Pope Francis as the most followed world leader on Twitter last month, has come under fire over his Twitter practices since assuming the presidency. In an interview with NBC's Sunday TODAY, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended Trump's use of his platform, emphasizing the importance of hearing from the man himself for the sake of accountability.
"I believe it's really important to hear directly from our leadership," Dorsey told NBC's Willie Geist. "I believe it's really important to hold him accountable. And I believe it's really important to have these conversations out in the open rather than behind closed doors."
Trump's account disruption comes hours after tweeting that he was backing off the idea of sending the New York terrorism suspect to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, calling for a regular federal trial and the death penalty instead.
...There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2017