For 11 glorious minutes around 7PM ET last Thursday, President Donald Trump’s verified Twitter account, @realdonaldtrump, inexplicably vanished. It was not immediately clear what had happened and Twitter did not immediately address the disappearance. Those attempting to reach the president’s account were met with a blue landing page; “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”
TRUMP DEACTIVATED pic.twitter.com/Q5Cdt0THCM
— ＮＩＣＯＬＡＴＥ (@Nicolaterino) November 2, 2017
Initially, Twitter’s Government and Elections team tweeted that Trump’s account was “inadvertently deactivated due to a human error.” But just a couple of hours later, PLOT TWIST! Further investigation revealed “a Twitter customer support employee … did this on the employee’s last day.” A Twitter employee deactivated POTUS’ account on his last day of work! Bro
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 response? “I guess the word must finally be getting out- and having an impact.” What word, Mr. President? WHAT WORD?!
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
For a glorious 11 minutes, the President of the United States was unable to tweet about Hillary’s emails, incite nuclear war with North Korea, or harass NFL players. Needless to say, Twitter was stoked. The jokes practically wrote themselves.
In that moment, “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!” truly became President
— Christine Love (@christinelove) November 2, 2017
Trump losing his Twitter for only 11 minutes reminded me of when Brock Turner went to jail for only 3 months.
— OhNoSheTwitnt (@OhNoSheTwitnt) November 3, 2017
That was like .003 Scaramuccis
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) November 2, 2017
I think we just came together as a nation for 23 seconds.
— Madeline Hill (@mad_hill) November 2, 2017
Dang. That was the best five minutes of the year.
— Gina Dalfonzo (@ginadalfonzo) November 2, 2017
If Trump’s Twitter is down, does this technically mean he’s no longer POTUS? I mean, it’s the only part of the job he pays attention to.
— John Schindler (@20committee) November 2, 2017
goddamn it. well, now we all know how la la land felt
— demi adejuyigbe (@electrolemon) November 2, 2017
Grandpa, where were you during the Trump Tweet Brownout of ‘17?
— Matt Novak (@paleofuture) November 2, 2017
Those few precious minutes were like when Andy played the opera record over the Shawshank PA system.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 2, 2017
Trump’s twitter account vanishing and then reappearing moments later is the best evidence yet that the events of the past 2 years are the result of warring sects of time travellers
— Nfinit (@Nfinit) November 2, 2017
There have been ongoing calls for Twitter to ban Trump from the platform over tweets directed at North Korea that the rogue nation interpreted as a declaration of war. Inexplicably, Twitter’s response was “It would take something really deplorable for a ban, and I highly doubt even Trump is that stupid.”