The former Twitter employee who deactivated President Donald Trump's Twitter account earlier in November opens up about why he did it.
Weeks after President Trump's Twitter account went off air for 11 minutes, Twitter Government has finally found the man who did it. In his home in Germany, Bahtiyar Duysak shared his reason for doing so.
The Germany-raised Turkish man in his 20s was in the United States for a work and study visa. At the time of the incident, he was already toward the end of his stay in the U.S. In fact, it was his last day as a contractor on Twitter.
He was part of the customer support team, at the Trust and Safety division. Their group is in charge of receiving alerts and reports of bad behavior, offensive or illegal tweets, harassment, and impersonation, among others. Their job is to check out these complaints and determine whether they are valid or if any steps should be taken.
According to Duysak, he received such complaint on his very last hour at work. A Twitter user reported Trump's account, just a few minutes before he turned off his computer and his access to the social media platform is officially disconnected.
He said he did just what his job asks him to, he put the wheels in motion to deactivate it, then left the building for good.
Duysak shared he did not think much of it, as he never thought the account would actually be deactivated. While the president has posted some very controversial messages in the past, his position makes these posts "newsworthy," which is why his account is given some sort of protection over there at the Twitter headquarters.
To Duysak's surprise, a woman reached out to him a few hours later, asking him about his connection with the incident.
While the former Twitter employee admits what happened was a "mistake," he is not particularly scared about its repercussions, if any.
"I didn't hack anyone. I didn't do anything that I was not authorized to do. I didn't go to any site I was not supposed to go to. I didn't break any rules," he told TechCrunch.
That, however, did not stop dozens of media outlets from hounding him, his family, and many close friends. He admits he had to delete "hundreds of pictures" from his social media just to protect the people around him.
"I didn't do any crime or anything evil, but I feel like Pablo Escobar," he added, "and slowly it's getting really annoying."
