Turkish-origin German citizen revealed as the man behind the deactivating of Trump’s Twitter account

ISTANBUL

Turkish-origin German citizen Bahtiyar Duysak has been revealed as the worker at Twitter who deactivated U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter account for 11 minutes in early November.

Speaking to technology website TechCrunch, Duysak said he was in the U.S. with a work and study visa and worked as a contractor for a fixed term, assigned to customer support as part of the Trust and Safety division of Twitter.

According to the website, a Twitter user reported Trump’s account and Duysak deactivated it on his last day.

Duysak said he was approached by a woman who said she had been contacted by someone asking about him in connection with Trump’s Twitter account. He said he then looked at the news and realized what had happened.

Duysak described the deactivation as a “mistake,” adding that he never thought the account would actually get deactivated.

“I didn’t hack anyone. I didn’t do anything that I was not authorized to do,” he told TechCrunch in Germany.

“I didn’t go to any site I was not supposed to go to. I didn’t break any rules,” he added. “I didn’t do any crime or anything evil, but I feel like Pablo Escobar.”

The U.S. President’s Twitter account was deactivated by a Twitter employee who was leaving the company on Nov. 2 and was down for 11 minutes before it was restored, the social media company had stated at the time.

Twitter later announced that the Trump account shutdown was accidental and a contractor, on his last day of work, was responsible for the incident.