President Trump’s Twitter account was deactivated on Thursday for 11 minutes at the hands of a rogue employee on their last day at the company. While many cheered the attempt at halting the controversial tweets, others expressed concern at the lack of control Twitter had over its own service.
In a tweet on Friday, Twitter said it has “implemented safeguards to prevent this from happening again.”
The New York Times reported that this person wasn’t a full-time employee, but a contractor, which caused many people to wonder how one part-time worker could wield so much power over the account of one of the world’s leaders.
We reached out to Twitter and a spokesperson said, “we won’t have any further comment on this issue.”
While they need to give workers the flexibility to suspend the accounts of bots, shouldn’t at least a second person be required to sign off on the deactivation of a public figure?
Twitter has faced a lot of criticism in attempting to police its service. The platform is rife with bullying and verbal abuse and the social media company has had a difficult time walking the fine line between what it labels as “free speech” and making its business an inviting experience for everyone.
Trump’s Twitter account has been under scrutiny, not only because he’s the U.S. president, but because he uses it frequently. He’s tweeted more than 36,000 times.
Some have wondered whether his threatening tweets to North Korea were at odds with Twitter’s terms and conditions.