Why an ex-Twitter employee deactivating Donald Trump's account is dangerous
“Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again,” tweeted the account Twitter Government, the micro-blogging site’s official handle for elections and government updates, at 5.35am IST. Just about two hours later, the culprit was caught.
A former Twitter employee, on his last day at work, went rogue and decided to do something that will immortalise him in the internet hall of fame. He deactivated the Twitter account of US President Donald Trump, arguably the first world leader to threaten a nuclear war with North Korea over social media.
“Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day. We are conducting a full internal review,” the same account announced at 7.30am IST.
Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day. We are conducting a full internal review. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
Twitter has refused to name the employee who committed the act, which gives the impression that this was definitely not a human error and that the company may take action against the said person. Be that as it may, the internet has taken it upon itself to celebrate his actions.
"Twitter customer support employee" for president https://t.co/oF7nouz550
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) November 3, 2017
We can be heroes, just for one day. https://t.co/sCe2UzMy50
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) November 3, 2017
[blasts "School's Out" from car stereo while speeding away from employee parking lot] https://t.co/bvjg3BLbit
— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) November 3, 2017
If I saw on a resume, "Deactivated Trump's Twitter account." That person is getting hired immediately. https://t.co/7m7mJ2dIXi
— Jesse Kim (@jckim206) November 3, 2017
Dear world: Never let this person buy their own drinks again. https://t.co/TeJWSmvQEk
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) November 3, 2017
But is that really what we should be doing? Is it not a matter of genuine concern that an employee in the social media giant’s customer service has the power to deactivate the account of one the most powerful people in the world? Is security at Twitter so easy to compromise that anyone one who has an employee card in the company can ban, delete or ghost accounts willy-nilly?
This incident definitely sparks troubling questions about who has access to the president's personal account, and the power such access holds.
Speaking to BuzzFeed News, a former senior employee of the social media company said that while "a lot" of employees have the ability to suspend a user's account and that fewer, possibly in the hundreds, can deactivate one. This person added that “the system like a dashboard”, which means that meaning employees may not need engineering skills to suspend or deactivate an account."It's one click if you have the rights to access the tool," the person said.
The source also mentioned that despite being aware of the fact that suspension permissions could be abused, Twitter has not yet changed its protocol.
Even if one were to ignore that scary thought for a moment, there is the issue of free speech. While it’s true that Twitter suspends accounts if they peddle expletives, or marks them as spam, a low-level employee taking that decision is an idea that’s unsettling and uneasy at best.
And even if one can find Donald Trump guilty of violating propriety, the very fact that Twitter has defended its decision of not removing a controversial Trump tweet that many interpreted as a threat directed toward North Korea is telling of the how the social media company's ethos. Twitter argued that Trump’s tweet did not meet the conditions for removal, adding that it would hereafter “consider a number of factors when assessing whether tweets violate our rules” including re-evaluating tweets that are in “public interest” or deemed “newsworthy”.
“This has long been internal policy and we’ll soon update our public-facing rules to reflect it. We need to do better on this, and will,” said Twitter.
It is after all, the president of the US one is talking about here, the man whose personal account has more than 40 million followers; not far-Right provocateurs like Milo Yiannopoulos or Tila Tequila.
Of course, not everyone is happy; they are concerned. Arguably, that is the correct reaction one should have, once the initial absurd hilarity of the situation dies down.
Twitter can't figure out how to ban Russian bots or constant death threats, but banning the president is no problem. https://t.co/muT19U1Q2w
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 3, 2017
Why does a random customer support employee have the ability to ban the President of the United States of America? Fucks sake @jack https://t.co/oIpgbncpjK
— Gab (@getongab) November 3, 2017
Oh, so any random Twitter employee has access to, and can deactivate any account (including Trump) based on their ideology? #SecurityFail https://t.co/beyhx5GmGz
— TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) November 3, 2017
The deactivation also comes at a time when several social networking websites are under scrutiny for the role they played in spreading Russian propaganda during the 2016 US presidential election. Earlier this week, lawyers from Twitter, Facebook and Google testified on Capitol Hill and, in a public statement, Twitter acknowledged that it had identified 2,752 accounts controlled by Russian operatives, as well as more than 36,000 bots that issued 1.4 million tweets during the election.
Donald Trump himself has been found guilty of being what can safely be termed "a disseminator of fake news and propaganda". He often makes unabashed comments with little or false information and has even made personal attacks, certainly indignified for a president.
But are these factors enough to remove a world leader from a social media podium, especially one he uses most often?
It's an ethical dilemma; one that should not be in the hands of an employee who wanted to make a grand exit.