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Twitter Employee Blamed For Deleting President Donald Trump's Account (npr.org)
A reader shares an NPR report: With the push of a button, an employee at Twitter accomplished for a brief few minutes on Thursday what President Trump's closest advisors have reportedly been trying unsuccessfully to do for months: shut down the seemingly never-ending tweet stream at @realDonaldTrump. Perhaps it was an act of civil disobedience, or maybe just a "take this job and shove it" moment, but shortly before 7 p.m., the president's personal account kicked back the error message "does not exist." By 7:03 p.m., it was up and running again and within about a half-hour, new presidential tweets were forthcoming. The folks at Twitter leapt into action to find out what had happened: "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," the company said in a statement. Two hours later, the company said, "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."
How many other accounts have simply been disappeared by a twitter employee that didn't like the account that never got noticed and remained deleted because they weren't the President of the US?
Where your data can get deleted by a click of a button by a disgruntled employee and even the fucking president of the United States can't be spared nor can his data be restored in less than 11 minutes.
Imagine if you weren't the president, would they even care?
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Shouldn't communication monopolies be subjected to common-carrier regulations to prevent them from abusing peoples' free-speech rights?
Try searching for "you're hired" today on Twitter and you'll see there are enough job vacancies to accommodate people who like and those who dislike the disgraced 45th president of the USA.
What we've discovered is that Twitter CSRs can whack any account whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. They have no real oversight whatsoever, so when this juvy decided to do something they just did it and left the building.
Besides being an asshole move, it shows a distinct lack of internal controls.
Twitter was a company that was born by accident. The technology was a side project that took off on its own. The four founders were more interested in playing musical chair with the CEO spot. The revenue model came years after burning through VC funding. One founder pulled a Steve Jobs by quoting Steve Jobs, listening to the music that Steve Jobs liked, dressing up in a Steve Jobs uniform (same clothes, simple style), and staging a Steve Jobs comeback after starting another company. Mark Zuckerburg called Twitter a clown car that fell into a gold mine. Deleting the president's account? Just another day at Twitter.
Source: "Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal"
It isn't an individual employee's place to judge who/what is appropriate.
It would have been much more effective if they'd banned the account for violating TOS rather than deleting it.
It would have been a bit more embarrassing for Twitter to handle, and I'm guessing the reason it took only 11 minutes to notice was some notification system that was triggered when a billion hits went to the same dead link. Maybe if the site had been serving up a banned user message, it would have taken longer to notice.
It means that some arbitrary process is in place to censor any point of view. Get the wrong censor, and your own pet cause could be next. It's all fun and games until a Scientologist is the censor.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Hey - don't be like the intolerant Antifa (now there's an oxymoron) anti-free speech people. Everyone should have their say, whether you agree or disagree. You have the option of ignoring it.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
So somehow reporting that someone shut down Trump's twitter account is Trump bashing? It's a simple matter of fact.
Oh that's right - I forgot. Any facts that you guys don't like are fake news/someone's agenda/whatever so you don't have to face them.
Let me tell you something, my friend. Reality doesn't give two shits what you think about it.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
This is the $64,000 question right here. Twitter has been actively censoring viewpoints they don't like and there is literally no oversight. 1984 memory holes are alive and well at Twitter.
And why do any of you give a rat's ass?
It's a business - not the government. They have no obligation to freedom of speech or any other freedoms.
That's what none of you are getting. If anyone thinks that Twitter, reddit, Slashdot, facebook or whatever has a legal obligation to free speech, you are horribly misinformed.
Sometimes there's a man, I won't say a hero, 'cause what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man and he's the man for his time and place.
His approval rating would probably rise if they did.
I neither voted for the guy, nor am I a "nevertrumper"; I think he's unfairly maligned much of the time (sometimes he deserves it too), but a lot of his tweets are ridiculous.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
The amazing part of this episode is that Twitter discovered the disgruntled employee's action and rectified it in 11 minutes. How did they find out so quickly? Either the employee bragged or the action set off a trip wire, meaning that particular account was closely monitored by Twitter. I doubt that even the White House would be able to get Twitter to act so quickly once POTUS or his staff discovered that the account was broken.
They're just like the Maquisards in WW2!
You are correct, aside from the ad hominem. In this case, however, it was not the business that deleted the account. It was a rouge employee on his last day. Big difference.
our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day
Was it the employee's last day before they deleted Trump's account?
You are correct, aside from the ad hominem. In this case, however, it was not the business that deleted the account. It was a rouge employee on his last day. Big difference.
Does it matter what their skin color is? Or did you mean rogue?
They got lucky that the person was smart enough to not delete the account. There are plenty of political radicals in SV that would have not been so rational. Since the threat of firing was already gone, the only way Twitter can punish them now is to publicly name the person who did this. That is also a good way to make it clear to other employees that if they follow in this person's footsteps, Twitter will not hesitate to nuke them in defense of its interests and users.
Like it or not, Trump is not just some user. He is almost a full blown asset with a monetary value to Twitter because he drives so much user engagement. Had the person deleted the account, Trump would have had a few options. One of which is Twitter's nightmare: move to Gab. Right now, Gab only has a few hundred thousand users and the neo-Nazis retards have a loud and proud presence there. I can guarantee you that if this SJW had deleted the account, Gab would have grown at least an order of magnitude within a few days. With 90 days, it would probably have at least 5M, if not 10M, users. Twitter would have also lost a huge source of engagement which would drive the conversations there down even further.
If Twitter management cares about shareholders (we know they don't, as Dorsey is still in charge), they'll take swift and brutal action against this person and their career.
Oh, deleting accounts of blacks and gays is acceptable? I seem to remember a recent court case about a wedding cake for a gay wedding that LEGALLY decided differently.
Good to know racism and sexism is ok, as long as you are a private company. Thanks for sticking up for racists!
I take the libtard bias with a grain of salt. Slashdot, to me, serves as confirmation of the existence of bigger stories. Cross check it with real news and find the full story. Too many people are afraid to look at multiple viewpoints. My coworkers included.
When some "alt-right" site talks about something like say "amazon wants to invade your home/privacy" and then a site like this one talks about the amazon echo, doorbell and lock, you start to see the truth. Sensationalist as most "alt-right" sites are, they are giving real information. The sensationalism is simply a warning of the dire implications of a given story. Ignore it at your peril. Governments and corporations typically do NOT have our best interests in mind.
Oh, deleting accounts of blacks and gays is acceptable? I seem to remember a recent court case about a wedding cake for a gay wedding that LEGALLY decided differently.
Good to know racism and sexism is ok, as long as you are a private company. Thanks for sticking up for racists!
Yes, I will stick up for racists. One has every right to be a racist, bigot or whatever. They have a right to speak their mind. But we also have the right to not listen to him - to censor him: tell him to get off of private property for instance, like a website.
Now, does the racist have a right to walk into a synagogue and start pontificating of the evils of Jews? Nope.
Does Twitter or any other media outlet have to allow the Nazi to share his views? Nope.
Do you have a right to tell him to STFU? Yep.
Does the government have a right to tell him to STFU? Nope.
Is rather be like the "intolerant" antifa than what they stand against.
The Nazis hate black people, brown people, Jews, Muslims, gay people, transsexuals, women, foreigners and so on.
Antifa hate the Nazis.
Those are not equivalent.
By defining "Nazis" an anyone who doesn't agree with Antifa, Antifa ARE Nazis.
Look at it this way:
Both Antifa and the Taliban respond to statues they don't like in the same way: tear them down.
Both Antifa and Mussolini's Fascists stated that they will violently attack people simply for preferring different economic policies.
When an organization has that much in common with the Taliban and Mussolini's Fascists - and masks themselves just like the KKK - there's a problem with that organization.
Yeah, this. It's probably the most famous Twitter account, which happens to be a technology firm, so News for Nerds kind of qualifies. I don't think TFS is very biased either, it's quite factual. The only thing it fails to mention is if said rogue employee will be charged, but I'd be amazed if they aren't...
And a Criminal Record in the process. That might restrict their ability to work in some industries.
Twitter is probably considered a "Public" means of communications (or a public utility). Just like the telephone...
Common carrier is the legal term you're looking for. Yes, megatechs guard that status jealously, it helps keep employee costs down.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It isn't an individual employee's place to judge who/what is appropriate.
Let's vote on it, then. Popular vote, thank you.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Actually it sounds like they have a review process in place, and it worked.
If I were designing a system to handle TOS violations I'd probably start with allowing employees to act swiftly but closed accounts go into a review queue with a note about what they did. I'd imagine Twitter has something like that in place and another employee saw it and quickly undid the damage.
Or maybe they just have alerts set up on changes to Trump's account, since it's so valuable to them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Indeed. The poor triggered free speech warriors have already tagged this story with "censorship". People need to keep some perspective, not everything is a conspiracy against the 1st Amendment and Donald J. Trump.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
>> this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee's last day.
Was it their last day before they did it?
I'm glad you see things so black and white. I completely agree that some random religion's website is completely theirs to screw with. Twitter is not a religion, it is a company with a corporate charter. They get economic perks like tax incentives and limited liability. They are hugely influential in our national discussion. I think the public/private line is sufficiently blurred that the analogy begins to fail. If Twitter decides to tilt the decision a certain direction, it has a large impact on society. I think they probably should be able to pick and choose the kind of information that appears on their site, but then they cannot run and hide behind "common carrier" type arguments when it is convenient for them. Short of illegal posts, they become editors when they pick and choose what appears on their site.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If I were that employee I'd have posted to the account instead of deleting it. What words to put in his mouth, though? I'd be hard-pressed to come up with something offensive enough to shock anyone. Maybe take the other tack, and admit to some of his shit.
You drank my drink, you drunk!
Yeah, I was thinking an International Peace Prize for the 11 minutes of peace brought to the world.
Stating the obvious to the three of you:
Hillary, Bush, and Soros are not "fascists". They don't become fascists just because you disagree with them. Fuck I hate Bush's regime with a passion, but the nearest I ever criticized it as remotely close to certain 1930s European regimes was in committing a similar war crime - namely conspiracy to wage war. Ideologically these are not fascists - they are not white supremacists, they do not promote violence against ethnic or religious minorities, they do not advocate violence against peaceful political opponents, they do not intend to use the state to punish political opposition, and so on.
The loose coalition of groups that labels itself Antifa has been pretty consistent in attacking groups that self identify with the political labels most people consider fascist: neo-nazis, white supremacists, white nationalists, etc.
Fascism is wrong. Most ordinary people "get it". Being against Fascism is not wrong, and while we can have a healthy debate about the use of violence against Fascists, we can reasonably agree that someone doesn't become a Fascist just because they disagree with you, but that people whose ideological make up is based upon violence and the racial superiority of the dominant racial group do fit most definitions of Fascist.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
We're both speculating, but my speculation is that they only caught it so fast because it was the President. I'm think you are probably right that they have a review process in place, but I suspect it is not triggered automatically because that would cost them money. You are thinking like an engineer looking to make a robust system, but that is not necessarily who is calling the shots.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Twitter unconscionably restricts users's free speech to fewer than 255 characters. We demand the full 8-bit width of a one-byte length descriptor.
Individual characters in Tweets are from a set larger than 255, <cough>unlike on Slashdot...</cough>
Trump's personal account is part of a government contract now, is it?
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
The White House's @POTUS account is a government contract. President Trump's personal account (@realDonaldTrump) is de facto a government contract to the extent that @POTUS is largely composed of Retweets from @realDonaldTrump. When @realDonaldTrump was briefly deactivated, half the Tweets on @POTUS became unavailable during that time.
and adding any or all of
Honey
Almonds
Peanuts
Sorbital Based Sweetener
Valerian Root
Lemon
to the cake "forgetting" or "not knowing" that members of the wedding party are allergic could not cause any more than normal liabilty
Shutting down free speech with violence while wearing masks and literal blackshirts is not fighting fascism. It is fascism!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
But couldn't he have deleted *Trump*, not just his twitter account?
Why start out on such a judgmental note?
Have gnu, will travel.
From what I've heard (I don't use so-called 'social media' of any kind, not for at least 10 years now) Trump's account on Twitter should have been deleted a long time ago for violation of Terms of Service (hate speech, etc) and it certainly should be deleted now for posting 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' (read as: PROPAGANDA). Of course the downside to that would be the American people wouldn't have daily reminders of what a jackass he is, since he proves that on a daily (sometimes hourly) basis, with practically every single 'tweet'.
Just so you know the actual facts...
Manafort has been charged with what amounts to tax evasion and none of it has anything to do with the Russians. Also, all the charges allege activities that happened BEFORE Trump's campaign was even a pipe dream, 4 YEARS before Trump announced back in 2012. Also, remember that Manafort's position as campaign manager ENDED right after Trump was the obvious nominee, so had nothing to do with the campaign in the general election fight with Clinton.
The campaign worker who pleaded guilty to "Lying to the FBI" (Again, no charges related to the Russians) was an unpaid worker, who attempted to set up meetings with the Russians for opposition research purposes, was rebuffed by the campaign. They told him to pound sand...
How does any of this indicate actual collusion with the Russians? I'm not seeing it.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
If I were designing a system to handle TOS violations I'd probably start with allowing employees to act swiftly but closed accounts go into a review queue with a note about what they did. I'd imagine Twitter has something like that in place and another employee saw it and quickly undid the damage. Or maybe they just have alerts set up on changes to Trump's account, since it's so valuable to them.
I'd probably make the review queue weight by number of followers as well as time so that any account with millions of followers would jump right to the top of the queue. You could say that past a certain number of followers they should have a two-tier process before it gets deactivated in the first place, but even a popular account could get hacked and those 11 minutes is a lot of time to spout a lot of garbage to many millions of people. Not that anyone would notice the difference in this case, but in general I too would go with instant deactivation, rapid review.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Knock Knock Knock
Give that (wo)man a medal! Hmm, actually, a gofundme. Really.
Wow, the Ivans found this post too!
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The so-called "nazis" that Antifa "protest" against are just regular Americans who have unpopular views. They don't do anything harmful and they just want the right to speak. They're harmless.
Antifa, on the other hand, are violent thugs who have gotten multiple people killed and caused who knows how much property damage.
I don't fear the so-called "nazis." They're a bunch of harmless dorks with Tiki torches.
Antifa terrifies me. They live for violence.
That's the ironic beauty of what we fought for in WW2 - we fought for the right for Nazis to express their opinions without being physically attacked for it. Only when we have all ideas out in the open can we hope people become smart enough to review the choices and make smart decisions.
Is rather be like the "intolerant" antifa than what they stand against.
The Nazis hate black people, brown people, Jews, Muslims, gay people, transsexuals, women, foreigners and so on.
Antifa hate the Nazis.
Those are not equivalent.
Antifa defines anyone they do not like as "Nazis". The number of actual Nazis in the USA today is under 200. Somehow, Antifa thugs find people who they think are Nazis everywhere.
You may think Antifa has the ability to read minds, and can tell who is really a Nazi in spite of the fact that they do not say they are a Nazi, do anything Nazis do, etc. Those of us with common sense understand that these people are low life thugs who make up stories about Nazis to justify their hateful violent authoritarian tendencies.
Trump's campaign manager is under indictment and confined to house arrest.
And what is Podesta up to these days?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
There, fixed it for you.
But American voters were "influenced" when a nefarious actor exposed emails that demonstrated the corruption of Hillary and the DNC, confirming what people already thought they knew about her. And it is that unfair influence that the Democrats seek to set right.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Attempted? Not by the Trump campaign. In fact, the one guy who claims he was trying to set getting opposition research information, was told to pound sand by the campaign, then he pleads guilty to lying to the FBI. That's NOT a Russian connection... Actually, it's evidence that there WASN'T a connection.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
No one was bringing Weinstein into this debate.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
What if an LGBTQ Nazi wants to announce their marriage over Twitter? Wouldn't that be discrimination?
I would love to have that happen just for the smuggled viral video of heads exploding on the Twitter censorship staff.
Yes, I don't participate in services I don't agree with the TOS. But the Twitter TOS specifically is pretty clear that "users own their content".
Do you really think Twitter wants to own any one of the channels? If they owned the data, people wouldn't be able to criticize the president, because then it would be "Twitter says".
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Hmm, do we have evidence that Twitter has ever been used for "communications"?
Suppose someone would have deleted Hitler's Twitter account. They would've been a hero now. Oh wait...
I won't play a semantics game. If you want to say that only governments can censor, then what word would you like me to use when Twitter chooses what is and is not acceptable on their site? I will happily use that word or phrase to keep the discussion going.
As to them being "private" - they are indeed privately owned, but they only exist because the government granted them a charter and because of that they enjoy government benefits such as tax advantages and - most importantly - limited liability. If they want to trade back some of those special governmental perks, I'll happily call them "private" and let them do as they wish. But as long as they enjoy a special government advantage, we the people should be able to decide what a corporation is or isn't.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
"Hillary, Bush, and Soros are not "fascists". They don't become fascists just because you disagree with them. "
They do if you use the same definition that Antifa does.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
No, the real question is why they restored it so quickly. I would have loved having a week or two without having to hear about the latest Trump rant on CNN.
Some scientists are now suggesting that there are other news organizations that will tell you the same corporate-friendly, pro-war, anti-American (America the theory, the ideal of individual freedom, not America the ESTABLISHMENT, they're pro-establishment,) such as MSNBC, for example.
Of course, if you want real, actual news, news that ISN'T slanted (or completely missing when not reporting on something is) in favor of the interests of their corporate MASTERS, you might consider news that is VIEWER-SUPPORTED instead?
You might consider Democracy Now, for instance, or The Young Turks Network, as just a couple examples. Actually, they also do sometimes go on about Trump and his nonsense, but at least you'll have the full context when you get your news from these and similar sources, and in the case of the Young Turks, they do manage to make the nightmare that is having Trump be "president" (hahaha) more bearable by pointing out what a miserable, petulant, stupid, incompetent CHILD he is.
Visit democracynow.org, tytnetwork.com if you're interested, and care to know what is actually going on.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
Was this his "last day at work" or just his "last day".
I don't believe it was a human error for a moment, simply because it is unrealistic that any Twitter employee would even remotely be looking at President Trump's data. What are the damn odds that this was just done inadvertently? Twitter does have a political bias itself, so I don't doubt that a cover up (however minor it is) is going to occur.
That employee had no business being there at all.
That employee likely should be fired. This isn't some employee curious and hit the wrong button on some celebrity that she was interested in. This is someone that deleted the account of the President because of her political agenda and/or she wanted to be a footnote in history.
I'm saying she because we so often just assume it was a "he" so it is only equal to assume "she" now. You don't have to be a "he" to be dangerous in today's world.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Trump's inane tweets aside, Twitter seems very popular with the media elite (some would say compulsory). If you believe that the media is influential (and I do), then it follows that Twitter is also influential.
Also, KFC did that really cool thing where they followed 11 guys named Herb and the Spice Girls.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
This person should get an award for reducing the noise on Twitter!
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
You almost certainly did not mean you needed "access" to those things but rather that you wish everybody had those actual things given to them, whether they worked to earne them or not.
Yep. That's what I meant. Where was the confusion?
Incidentally, "wishing that DJT would stop tweeting" guarantees that you are NOT a classical "liberal", who in an earlier era would have said that he disagreed with possibly everything DJT tweeted but would defend to the death his right to tweet.
I wish that people with BO would stop getting on elevators too. Doesn't mean I'm fighting to ban them.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
No, no. The punishment should be he has to watch Barney for a day.