For a brief period Wednesday evening, Twitter searches of terms including “asshole,” “fascist,” “racist,” “worst,” and “dickhead” yielded results topped by the Twitter account of President Donald Trump. A search for the term “corrupt,” however, yielded the account of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Screengrab via Samantha Grasso
To fellow journalists tweeting about this Twitter search thing, it does cut both ways: pic.twitter.com/mzMB5wnGGt
— Biz Carson (@bizcarson) January 26, 2017
I kid you not, if you search "dickhead" on twitter, @realDonaldTrump is the first option 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/ljRHueIiHU
— maybe: Harvey (@Classy_Harvey) January 26, 2017
I searched the words 'fascist', 'worst' and 'racist' here on Twitter. It's quite telling what results came up, or rather…..who. #Resist pic.twitter.com/aJW6WRCxkq
— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) January 26, 2017
https://twitter.com/aishacs/status/824431050931732481
https://twitter.com/AndyCole84/status/824427218709262338
According to TechCrunch, Twitter’s short-term Easter egg for these hot search terms was first reported by a historian named Greg Jenner around 7:30pm ET.
Haha, type "asshole" into Twitter's search bar. Do it.
— Greg Jenner (@greg_jenner) January 26, 2017
Other keywords that triggered the 45th president’s Twitter account included “tiny hands,” “putin,” “asshat,” “golden showers,” and “#SnowflakeInChief,” according to Gizmodo. “Putin puppet” also triggers the result.
https://twitter.com/MarcMcD/status/824432905283837952
Fun with Twitter search. #GoldenShowers @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/TECukGZMKE
— Danny! 🇨🇦 (@carpedanny) January 26, 2017
When you do a Twitter search for "tiny hands" 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/G8Ed6SFgwg
— David Leavitt 🎲🎮🧙♂️🌈 (@David_Leavitt) January 26, 2017
Screengrab via Samantha Grasso
At 1am ET, only Twitter searches for “racist,” “tiny hands,” “golden showers,” “Putin puppet,” and “#SnowFlakeInChief” still yielded the president’s account, but Trump’s account has since been removed from the search results.
Twitter will certainly have some explaining to do. While other accounts appear under the same search terms, all others seem to either have the search term somewhere in their username or Twitter bio to trigger the search result. Trump’s appearance, however, seems to have been programmed into the results.
Screengrab via Samantha Grasso
Twitter’s subversive diss at the president is reminiscent of a Google gaffes from 2005 and 2006, in which searches of the terms “failure” and “miserable failure” yielded results topped by President George W. Bush.
Twitter has not responded to a request for comment.