The Twitter account of U.S. President Donald Trump was temporarily deactivated almost a month ago. At the time, the identity of the person who did this, and whom many referred to as the true hero, was not revealed. However, almost a month after the incident, the person who did this has come forward.
Disabling President Twitter account was a “mistake” not heroism
Initially, when Trump’s Twitter account was deactivated, the micro-blogging firm said it was a “human error,” and later, the company said that an outgoing employee did it on his last working day. In due course, it was revealed that it was not an employee, but rather a contractor, who suspended the page.
Beyond this, Twitter did not reveal any information, neither the identity nor the intention behind deactivating the account. However, reporters took the challenge to look for the contractor, who was brave enough to take this audacious step. Finally, the person who did this came forward and gave an interview to TechCrunch.
His name is Bahtiyar Duysak, a German citizen of Turkish descent, and at that time he was working as a contractor (via Pro Unlimited) for Twitter under a work and study visa. He has also worked at Google and YouTube via another contractor, Vaco.
Duysak told TechCrunch that he was working as a customer service provider at one of Twitter’s departments, which receives reports from users. In his last few hours at Twitter, Duysak said one user reported Trump for abuse, following which “as a final, throwaway gesture, he put the wheels in motion to deactivate it. Then he closed his computer and left the building,” reports TechCrunch.
Hours later, when the President’s Twitter account was deactivated and the whole world was going crazy over it, Duysak got to know about his action. He called the action a “mistake” not believing it would actually happen, but many others called him a superhero. However, he has not “felt like one (a hero) at all,” Duysak told TechCrunch.
Not afraid of investigation
Explaining why he finally revealed himself, Duysak stated that he had to reveal himself because the media had gone overboard in contacting family and friends. Further, Duysak said that he is not worried about the future course of action even if there is an investigation as there were no laws broken. “I didn’t hack anyone. I didn’t do anything that I was not authorized to do….didn’t go to any site I was not supposed to go to. I didn’t break any rules,” he said.
According to BuzzFeed, Duysak was a former volunteer security guard at a Muslim community center in California. Trump has not been supportive of Muslims, and during his presidential campaign, he even called for a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims from entering the U.S.
After the President’s Twitter account was taken down, users were shocked to see how much power employees have over sensitive accounts.
In a statement on Wednesday, Twitter said, “We have taken a number of steps to keep an incident like this from happening again.”
