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posted by n1 on Wednesday November 08 2017, @08:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the sad! dept.

The President of the United States of America lost the crucial ability to Tweet for an 11 minute timespan on Thursday (Nov. 2), following the temporary deactivation of his Twitter account by a Twitter employee who was being let go by the company. The incident has raised questions about the safeguards in place for high-profile Twitter users:

This is the way the world ends: not with a bang but a deleted Twitter account. At least, so it appeared for 11 minutes Thursday evening, when visitors to President Trump's personal account, @realDonaldTrump, were informed that there was no such thing.

[...] Amid a presidency that has seemed, at times, to be conducted primarily in 140-character pieces, this was a seismic event — and what was left of Twitter erupted. It was a raucous, modern-day town-square gathering of the sort not seen since ... well, since five months ago, when Mr. Trump coined a new word in the middle of the night.

[...] The answer, revealed three hours later, was something straight out of "Office Space." After saying in an initial statement that the account had been "inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee," Twitter announced that a rogue customer support worker had done it on his or her last day at the company.

Previously: Twitter Shadowbans Republican Frontrunner
Twitter Co-founder: I'm Sorry if We Made Trump's Presidency Possible


Similar submissions also came from martyb and Phoenix666.

Original Submission #1Original Submission #2Original Submission #3

 
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  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday November 08 2017, @03:09PM (3 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Wednesday November 08 2017, @03:09PM (#594075) Journal

    Censorship, as a concept, is not about hearing a message, is about actively preventing others to do it. This is a light case of censorship akin to a demonstration, because the actor is not powerful and the result basically irrelevant. So what? a demonstration can choke traffic on a road. Any reference to freedom in the context of not being able to move is in most cases doublespeak.

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  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 08 2017, @05:09PM (2 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday November 08 2017, @05:09PM (#594137)

    Censorship, as a concept, is not about hearing a message, is about actively preventing others to do it.

    If I turn my car stereo way up and roll my windows down, anything I play on my radio will be audible to everyone I drive by.

    So if I refuse to play Trump on my car stereo and blast it so all pedestrians near me can hear it, am I engaging in censorship?

    Similarly, if I refuse to play The Beatles on my car stereo loud enough for pedestrians to hear it, am I engaging in censoring The Beatles?

    This whole "censorship" thing is just idiotic. The police aren't going to be amused when they get called for a noise complaint and you try to cry "censorship!!".

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday November 08 2017, @11:39PM (1 child)

      by Bot (3902) on Wednesday November 08 2017, @11:39PM (#594309) Journal

      > play Trump on my car stereo
      my?
      That freedom fighter guy did not own the twitter account, nor any twitter infrastructure.

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      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday November 08 2017, @11:42PM

        by Bot (3902) on Wednesday November 08 2017, @11:42PM (#594311) Journal

        To further explain. Trump was on the car stereo, and some pedestrians would have been listening, and a parking valet uses the car keys to get into the car and shut the stereo down.
        This is censorship.

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