Yahoo – AFP,
Rob Lever, November 3, 2017
Washington (AFP) - Twitter said it had boosted security measures Friday in response to a rogue employee's move cutting off Donald Trump's account, an 11-minute outage which drew mocking praise from the president's critics but also warnings of a dangerous precedent.
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| President Donald Trump has 41.7 million followers on his personal Twitter account, from which he blasts his most controversial and attention-grabbing comments (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB) |
Washington (AFP) - Twitter said it had boosted security measures Friday in response to a rogue employee's move cutting off Donald Trump's account, an 11-minute outage which drew mocking praise from the president's critics but also warnings of a dangerous precedent.
The US
social network initially said the account had been "inadvertently
deactivated due to human error" after the outage late Thursday but
subsequently indicated it was done intentionally by a departing worker on his
or her final day.
Hours later
Friday, Twitter said it implemented "safeguards to prevent this from
happening again."
"We
won't be able to share all details about our internal investigation or updates
to our security measures, but we take this seriously and our teams are on
it," a tweet from Twitter government said.
Trump
reacted on Twitter nearly 12 hours after the shutdown.
"My
Twitter account was taken down for 11 minutes by a rogue employee. I guess the
word must finally be getting out-and having an impact," he tweeted.
The social
media platform lit up with reaction to the deactivation -- with some calling
the employee a "hero" and others expressing concern.
Democratic
Representative Ted Lieu, another prolific tweeter, wrote: "Dear Twitter
employee who shut down Trump's Twitter: You made America feel better for 11
minutes. DM me & I will buy 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."
But the
temporary disappearance of the account -- and the glee this prompted among the
president's detractors -- drew fire from others.
"Liberals
were celebrating for the 15 minutes that Trump's Twitter disappeared, proving
once again they love censorship and hate free speech," tweeted Makada
Duncanson, a conservative writer.
Security
concerns
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."
Grygiel
wrote an essay earlier this year calling for "pre-moderation" of
Trump's account "to prevent an accidental war" which could be sparked
by spoofing or disruption of the presidential account.
"We
need to make sure that an intern cannot easily compromise that account,"
she said.
Grygiel has said some accounts which could have "systemic" importance for national security or financial markets should be subject to human review with a delay of a few seconds.
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| Twitter says it is investigating how a departing employee deactivated President Donald Trump's account for 11 minutes (AFP Photo/Leon NEAL) |
Grygiel has said some accounts which could have "systemic" importance for national security or financial markets should be subject to human review with a delay of a few seconds.
If
something false or incendiary is tweeted, there is no way to take it back, and
this could lead to war or a shock to financial markets, Grygiel noted.
"It is
shocking that some random Twitter employee could shut down the president's
account," 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?"
Jeff
Jarvis, a City University of New York journalism professor and longtime Trump critic,
said the shutdown "is a serious matter but I count this as an act of
protest that made a strong statement, a statement I endorse."
The
president has 41.8 million followers on his personal Twitter account, which he
uses to fire off controversial and attention-grabbing comments.
Trump has
used the social media site to announce policy. He surprised Pentagon chiefs in
July by tweeting that transgender people would be barred from serving "in
any capacity" in the US military, a ban that has since been blocked by a
US court.
Trump's
official White House account, @POTUS, which has 20.9 million followers, was
apparently not affected by the outage.
Twitter's
rules and regs
Trump's
critics have on several occasions called for Twitter to shut down his account,
arguing that his tweets may violate Twitter's terms on hate speech or abuse.
Some said
Trump's tweeting about North Korea -- including a comment where he said its
leader "won't be around much longer" violated Twitter's terms of
service banning threats of violence.
Twitter
responded with a pledge to review its policy while noting that
"newsworthiness" and public interest must be considered in deciding
whether to take down a tweet.
Grygiel
said it is problematic that the president is using a private entity to issue
important statements on policy.
"There
are communications risks with the president's reliance on a public
communications company," she said, noting that Twitter has a right to ban
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."
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