The twitter account for ICE has just disappeared with no explanation whatsoever. It doesn’t even say it was suspended or blocked, just that the account doesn’t exist:
This is the official government Twitter account of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pic.twitter.com/aGQr1VTxWg
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 12, 2020
If you go to ICE’s homepage, the twitter icon at the bottom still links to their ICEgov account.
The account was up yesterday, as ICEgov tweeted regarding Veteran’s day:
Even the director of ICE was referring the account yesterday as well:
The motivation that drives our armed forces to excellence globally is present every day throughout the offices of @ICEgov, where nearly 1/3 of our workforce are veterans, carrying with them a broad range of training and expertise, as they continue serving the American people.
— ICE Director (@DirectorICEgov) November 11, 2020
So the question is what happened to it? Did our fascist twitter overlords finally decide to abolish ICE’s twitter account? Or did someone at ICE delete it themselves? If Twitter had banned it, wouldn’t it say it was “Account suspended”?
So far no one on Twitter seems to know, but once we get answers we’ll bring them to you.
MAJOR UPDATE: ICEgov is back on Twitter, again with no explanation:
The @ICEgov account is back up on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/KRrtVp7cAP
— Jean Guerrero (@jeanguerre) November 12, 2020
Notice how low the counts are for those following. It’s slowly climbing back up, but right now it’s only at 222 followers. Also all of their old tweets are there, suggesting that maybe it was Twitter who deleted it? I don’t have enough info to draw that conclusion, but it is my suspicion, of course.