Donald Trump's Twitter went down for several minutes
For a few brief, blissful moments on Thursday, Donald Trump's Twitter account didn't exist. The account -- which now has 41 million followers -- went offline for some five minutes before being restored back to its old state.
Reporters noticed the issue immediately, and attempts to reach his page displayed the "Sorry, that page doesn't exist!" error message.
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The account appeared to come back online within minutes.
The last tweet posted to the account before the issue was a video clip announcing Jerome Powell as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Trump had used the platform several times earlier in the day to call for the death penalty for Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the man charged with two terrorism counts following the New York attack.
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As Twitter users have pointed out, the error message was different to the one shown when accounts are suspended.
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The POTUS account was unaffected.
UPDATE Nov. 2 5:09 p.m. PT:
Twitter addressed the issue in a tweet, insisting that "human error" was to blame.
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UPDATE Nov. 2 7:12 p.m. PT: Twitter shared that it had determined Trump's account was intentionally deactivated by a customer support employee on their last day. So not so much human error.
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UPDATE Nov. 3 11:14 a.m. PT:
Twitter said it had "implemented safeguards to prevent this from happening again" but wouldn't share further details.
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Topics Donald Trump Politics
Tim Chester was Senior Editor, Real Time News in Los Angeles. Before that he was Deputy Editor of Mashable UK in London. Prior to joining Mashable, Tim was a Senior Web Editor at Penguin Random House, helping to relaunch the Rough Guides website and other travel brands. He was also a writer for Buzzfeed, GQ and The Sunday Times, covering everything from culture to tech and current affairs. Before that, he was Deputy Editor at NME.COM, overseeing content and development on the London-based music and entertainment site. Tim loves music and travel and has combined these two passions at festivals from Iceland to Malawi and beyond.
