Sparks fly after brief Trump Twitter outage

Arogue Twitter employee managed to silence Donald Trump’s favouritecommunications tool for 11 minutes, drawing mocking praise from criticsof the US president — but also warnings it could set a dangerousprecedent.Visitors to @realDonaldTrump around 7pm (2300 GMT) on Thursday were greeted with the message “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!”Twitterinitially said the account had been “inadvertently deactivated due tohuman error” but later indicated it was done intentionally by adeparting worker on his or her final day.“We are conducting a full internal review,” the company added.Trump did not react on Twitter until nearly 12 hours later.“MyTwitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. Iguess the word must finally be getting out-and having an impact,” hetweeted.The social media platform lit up with reaction to thedeactivation — with some calling the employee a “hero” and othersexpressing concerns.Democratic Representative Ted Lieu, anotherprolific tweeter, wrote: “Dear Twitter employee who shut down Trump’sTwitter: You made America feel better for 11 minutes. DM me & I willbuy you a Pizza Hut pizza.”David Jolly, a former member of Congress,tweeted that the employee “could become a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize”.Butthe temporary disappearance of the account — and the glee this promptedamong the president’s detractors — drew fire from others.“Liberalswere celebrating for the 15 minutes that Trump’s Twitter disappeared,proving once again they love censorship and hate free speech,” onepopular tweet read.Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University professor who studies social media, said the deactivation is worrisome.“This is no laughing matter,” she said. “This is a serious issue and one of national security.This incident is a sign that Twitter does not have adequate safeguards in place for significant accounts.” Grygielwrote an essay earlier this year calling for “pre-moderation” ofTrump’s account “to prevent an accidental war” which could be sparked byspoofing or disruption of the presidential account.“We need to make sure that an intern cannot easily compromise that account,” she said.Grygielhas said some accounts which could have “systemic” importance fornational security or financial markets should be subject to human reviewwith a delay of a few seconds. If something false or incendiary istweeted, there is no way to take it back, and this could lead to war or ashock to financial markets, Grygiel noted.“It is shocking that some random Twitter employee could shut down the president’s account.What if they instead had tweeted fake messages?” Blake Hounshell, the editor-in-chief of Politico Magazine, wrote on Twitter.He added: “Seriously, what if this person had tweeted about a fictional nuclear strike on North Korea?”Thepresident has 41.7mn followers on his personal Twitter account, whichhe uses to fire off controversial and attention-grabbing comments. Trumphas used the social media site to announce policy.He surprisedPentagon chiefs in July by tweeting that transgender people would bebarred from serving “in any capacity” in the US military, a ban that hassince been blocked by a US court.Trump’s official White House account, @POTUS, which has 20.9mn followers, was apparently not affected by the outage.Afterthe account was restored Trump did not tweet about the vanishing actuntil early Friday, but wrote several posts on other topics.Trump’scritics have on several occasions called for Twitter to shut down hisaccount, arguing that his tweets may violate Twitter’s terms on hatespeech or abuse.Some said Trump’s tweeting about North Korea —including a comment where he said its leader “won’t be around muchlonger” violated Twitter’s terms of service banning threats of violence.Twitterresponded with a pledge to review its policy while noting that“newsworthiness” and public interest must be considered in decidingwhether to take down a tweet.Grygiel said it is problematic that the president is using a private entity to issue important statements on policy.“Thereare communications risks with the president’s reliance on a publiccommunications company,” she said, noting that Twitter has a right toban Trump at any time.“I would want to know that President Trump has a fallback way to issue a message if the tweets stop flowing.”