Trump says 'rogue' employee brought down his Twitter account, critics joyous

A Twitter employee on his last day in office brought down Donald Trump's account for 11 minutes on Friday, leading to the US President retorting: "I guess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact".

"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," Trump tweeted.

The micro-blogging platform confirmed that Trump's Twitter account @realdonaldtrump disappeared from the site for around 11 minutes shortly before 7 p.m.

A series of tweets issued by Twitter's Government and Elections team later attributed this to a rogue employee.

"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," the team said.

"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," they added.

Twitterati hailed it as "great" and "historic" in some hilarious tweets.

Twitter user Cabel Sasser said the time during which "Trump's twitter account went away" were "the happiest" of his year.

"I don't want Trump's Twitter taken down. Every tweet is evidence. Keep tweeting, Trump. No one tell him Mueller can see them???" a user tweeted.

"Dear Twitter employee who shut down Trump's Twitter: You made America feel better for 11 minutes. DM me and I will buy you a Pizza Hut pizza," another one said.

"If the next tweet from Trump's Twitter account is politically, mathematically, scientifically or grammatically correct...He was hacked," a user posted.

Apparently Trump lost 41 million followers in a span of 15 minutes.

Another Twitter user approved the move: "Trump's account 'accidentally deactivated' for 15 minutes, Trump's account loses 41 million followers,... Twitter begging to be nationalized."

However, the number of followers were restored and the account now shows 41.7 million.

According to The Verge, there have been ongoing calls for Twitter to ban Trump over tweets that critics said could be interpreted as calls to violence.

Twitter replied, saying it would enforce the same rules for Trump as it does for other accounts.

--IANS

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