Twitter Briefly Suspends Its Own CEO's Account

But on Tuesday, Twitter brought the ban hammer down on someone very surprising: its own co-founder and chief executive, Jack Dorsey.

Dorsey's account disappeared for about 15 minutes on Tuesday night. Even when it reappeared, it took a while for the executive's millions of followers to show up again; at one point, the account showed as few as 142.

Dorsey acknowledged the blip in a message that echoed the network's first-ever tweet - "just setting up my twttr" -- and said that the suspension was due to an "internal mistake":

"just setting up my twttr...again (account suspension was an internal mistake)"

Under Twitter's terms, accounts can be suspended if they're found to be spam or in violation of Twitter's community standards. Accounts can be suspended if other users flag a particular account for bad behavior; the company then reviews those complaints and makes its decision.

Accounts may also be suspended if Twitter suspects that it has been hacked or compromised. Users can appeal their suspensions.

Nothing on Dorsey's feed indicates that any of these issues were a concern; no strange messages from hackers appeared on the feed, nor does Dorsey himself appear to have said anything obviously objectionable.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why Dorsey's account was banned in the first place.

The mistake, while brief, drew a lot of attention. Other Twitter users were quick to pile onto Dorsey's tweet, with some taking the opportunity to criticize Twitter's policies for banning accounts. In many cases, these users claimed that they have been banned in the past for no reason, or accused Twitter of political censorship.

Others also criticized Twitter for not banning more accounts - including at least one person who said Twitter should suspend the account of President-elect Donald Trump - because no conversation this month can help but become political.

Dorsey did not jump into the fray to respond to any of those complaints.

Most users, however, just had a good laugh at Dorsey's expense. Because, let's face it: The fact that Twitter took down its own chief executive's account is pretty funny, no matter which way you slice it.