UPDATE, March 12, 3:27 p.m. William Shatner's account has been reactivated. The account is showing all of Shatner's previous tweets, but it has lost a significant amount of followers. It currently has 846,000 followers down from 1.79 million before being deleted.
Shatner also tweeted regarding why he quit Twitter, joking that it had something to do with Tom Bergeron's departure from his ABC show.
Well you know I decided since @Tom_Bergeron quit America's Funniest Videos I would quit Twitter. Only kidding @Tom_Bergeron. MBB— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) March 12, 2014
Actor William Shatner has left Twitter, the social network he apparently loved, to focus on other final frontiers.
Sometime in the last 24 hours, the Star Trek actor posted a few "final" tweets, which have now vanished along with Shatner's account. The first, a quote from the Lewis Carroll poem, The Walrus and the Carpenter:
"The time has come," the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--"
He followed that tweet with an announcement:
"My Dear friends, after much deliberation I've made the decision to leave Twitter. It's not an easy decision, but it's the right one for me."
His final tweet:
"I wish you all the very best. Bill."
And then he was gone... Thanks for your fantastic tweets @WilliamShatner #twitterjustlostalegend #byebyeKirk pic.twitter.com/YtSUO4Zykw— Russell Southam (@LittleBigFilmCo) March 12, 2014
And with that, Shatner's Twitter stream was not only silenced, but every single one of his 12,600 tweets to his 1.79 million-plus followers vaporized, as well.
Thanks to Google search, and its cache feature, you can still see Shatner's Twitter profile and some of Shatner's last tweets. Unfortunately, they do nothing to illuminate why the prolific actor and Priceline pitchman walked away.
According to Twitter's Account Deactivation page, Shatner's account removable is working as it should. Upon deactivation, the service promises to remove your account and the associated content "within a few minutes," though "some content may be viewable on twitter.com for a few days."
Shatner could change his mind. If he does so within the next 30 days, Twitter will reinstate the account and, it appears, its content. After that, Twitter says, "it is permanently deleted."
On Twitter, followers and friends lamented his departure:
So @WilliamShatner has quit Twitter, deleted his account. Why?! #EndofDays— Barbary Spencington (@Telibarb) March 12, 2014
America's Funniest Home Videos host Tom Bergeron, who is apparently a friend of Shatner's, thought his account was only temporarily broken.
Just tried to lob another snarky tweet at my buddy @WilliamShatner, but his Twitter page is temporarily down. It's in the Mutara Nebula.— Tom Bergeron (@Tom_Bergeron) March 12, 2014
Then an interesting, though unconfirmed thread emerged.
Direct From The Bridge: @WilliamShatner will be back. "Absolutely. It’s only a temporary demise." From Bill's assistant. #KlingonHack.— Tom Bergeron (@Tom_Bergeron) March 12, 2014
Mashable reached out to Shatner's agency for comment, and will update as more information becomes available. Until then, we'll just hope this theory is true.
William Shatner left twitter, quite unexpectantly. Maybe Starfleet recalled him for one of those space time continuum missions?— Tekla Vassie (@TeklaVassie) March 12, 2014