Rogue employee Deletes the U.S. President's Twitter Account

[engine]

A rogue employee deleted Donald Trump's twitter account before leaving the company. Apparently, it was their last day and it looks like they wanted to make a mark.
Clearly, it got noticed.

It does raise questions over the safety of accounts, the repercussions upon the outgoing employee, and, of course, the employability of someone that took that action.
[bbc.co.uk...]

It may seem funny, but if it was your account you'd be upset, i'm sure.

[Marshall]

From an account holder's perspective, yes, you would have to question the ability of one person to delete an account and how safe your account is. From the perspective of someone a little tired of the tweets, not a problem.

[LifeinAsia]

I'm assuming Twitter had a good backup? It's a good reminder to make sure you have good backups at your company, as well as clear policies (on both the user and employee sides) as to ownership of user data/contents.

the employability of someone that took that action.

I'm sure he's receiving lots of offers from companies/organizations that are anti-Trump.

the repercussions upon the outgoing employee

This could be an interesting situation for case law, in terms of deletion of intellectual property (of Twitter) or possibly even theft (from Trump), depending on Twitter's ToS.

[phranque]

not to mention obvious national security concerns...

[topr8]

>>It may seem funny, but if it was your account you'd be upset, i'm sure.

forget the politics, this is disgraceful behaviour. the person should never get another job in the industry.

>>I'm sure he's receiving lots of offers from companies/organizations that are anti-Trump.

maybe, but someone who clearly breaks company rules (i'm sure deleting an account without due process is absolutely not allowed) because of their own personal opinion or world view is an utter liability, a misguided company might agree with this person's sentiments, however could they be sure they would be in agreement in all issues in the future.

[lucy24]

Personally I'm reassured to learn that it is possible to delete a Twitter account. Has anyone ever succeeded in deleting a Facebook account? (LinkedIn, yes, I've done it both for myself and a family member.)

[LifeinAsia]

a misguided company might agree with this person's sentiments

I completely agree. However, during the past couple of years, we've seen so many misguided companies that are have put politics (or the personal values of the CEO) ahead of common business sense and had it come back to bite them. They don't seem to comprehend that not everyone shares their view, or that sharing their view on issue A doesn't necessarily mean sharing their views on all other issues.

[keyplyr]

No comment :)

[tangor]

Simple proof that Twitter has no check and balance in THEIR BUSINESS STRUCTURE to prevent something like this from happening.

Kinda makes you wonder about the rest of Silicone Valley. :(

As my Pest Control contractor remarks each time he sprays the residence for bugs and other uglies: "If you see one, know there are 100 more you can't see."

[seoskunk]

If you can't find the humour in this story - you need to get a life.

[edited by: lawman at 7:14 am (utc) on Nov 6, 2017]
[edit reason] spelling [/edit]

[Shepherd]

It may seem funny, but if it was your account you'd be upset

I have found that the general population does get overly upset when their access to services/products they receive for free gets interrupted. Life, Liberty, pursuit of Happiness, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail...

not to mention obvious national security concerns...

Yeah, that's a real issue. Not sure about actual security issues but mass panic could definitely be an ugly result. Ladies and gentlemen: the director of the Mercury Theatre and star of these broadcasts, Orson Welles . . .

[Hoople]

Having held this level of IT admin position many times over the years I'll comment on the way account termination works in MOST places. All companies have an account removal process driven by the account holder or Human Resources. Someone quits/fired/leaves with notice it doesn't matter. The account is MOVED to a holding area in the accounts container, disabled and password change to a really long text string.

After a holding time of more than a few days the account may be moved to a zombie container (all accounts in it have the login right disabled) and then backed up. Final true deletion may be months to as much as a year later. Why? In IT some people job hop a LOT to the point of staying in one place a few weeks or months and then moving on. A new contract comes up and they're back at it like they never left with a few mouse clicks!

This person leaving Twitter did the deletion without authorization nor backing paperwork/email permission. For someone in mid-career, this is akin to suicide. It may take him many years to get back to where he was career-wise 5 years ago. Hating the new guy is one thing, this was plain stupid!

[lucy24]

This person leaving Twitter did the deletion without authorization nor backing paperwork/email permission.

But isn't it ultimately a Twitter issue? How could an account be deleted so easily?