Contractor who deactivated Trump’s Twitter comes forward

The former Twitter contractor who shut off President Donald Trump’s account for 11 minutes on his last day at work earlier this month insisted on Wednesday that it was an accident.

Bahtiyar Duysak, a German national of Turkish origin who was employed in Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on a temporary work visa, came forward as the man who silenced the world’s most important social media page.

While many anti-Trump forces hailed Duysak as a hero for muting the volatile American president and his favorite mode of communication, he claims there was nothing intentional.

‘It was definitely a mistake,’ he told TechCrunch.

‘If I’m involved in this I really apologize if I hurt anyone. I didn’t do anything on purpose.’

Duysak says that on his last day at the company, somebody submitted a complaint against Trump for violating Twitter’s guidelines that ban users from incendiary comments.

The former Twitter contractor who shut off President Donald Trump’s account (above) for 11 minutes on his last day at work earlier this month insisted on Wednesday that it was an accident

For a few minutes, visitors to Donald Trump’s Twitter were greeted with this error message shortly after 7pm on November 2

Twitter explained two hours later that it was one of its own employees that caused the outage and followed up their initial tweet explaining it was an employee on their last day

He worked at Twitter’s Trust and Safety division, where he handled customer support.

Duysak told TechCrunch that after Trump’s account was flagged, he performed functions on his computer that ended up causing the account to be deactivated – although he did not specify.

He said that he realized after the fact – when he got home and turned on the news – that he may have inadvertently shut off the president’s Twitter. 

‘I had a wild time in America,’ he said. 

While many anti-Trump forces hailed Duysak as a hero for muting the volatile American president and his favorite mode of communication, he claims there was nothing intentional

‘If I’m involved in this I really apologize if I hurt anyone. I didn’t do anything on purpose,’ he told TechCrunch

Duysak says that on his last day at the company, somebody submitted a complaint against Trump for violating Twitter’s guidelines that ban users from incendiary comments

‘I was tired sometimes, and everyone can do mistakes. So it might be that I did a mistake.’

Duysak said that Trump’s Twitter account was deactivated due to ‘a number of coincidences – very little probabilities which randomly occurred on my last day of work.’

‘I didn’t hack anyone, I didn’t do anything that I wasn’t authorized to do,’ he said.

‘I didn’t go to any site or tool where I wasn’t supposed to be at. I didn’t do any crime and I underline that I complied with all rules.’

Duysak said that he is unhappy about the notoriety he has gained since November 2.

He said that since his last day at Twitter, he has been hounded by the press.

Reporters have also contacted his friends, who cut ties to Duysak in response.

‘I just want to continue ordinary life. I don’t want to flee from the media,’ he said. 

‘I want to speak to my neighbors. I want to speak to my friends. 

‘I had to delete hundreds of friends [from social media] because reporters are stalking me. I had to delete so many pictures and I just want to continue ordinary life.’

When asked about people’s reactions calling him a hero, he said: ‘[The Nobel Peace Prize] should be accepted by the one who deserves it. I don’t deserve to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.’ 

The suspected sabotage took place shortly before 7pm on November 2, when social media reports surfaced that the president’s personal account @realdonaldtrump was unavailable, providing the error message that the user ‘does not exist.’

After a brief investigation Twitter owned up and took responsibility for the outage.

In a tweeted statement, the company said Trump’s account was ‘inadvertently deactivated due to human error’ by one of its employees.

‘We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again,’ the statement continued.

But in a second statement, Twitter confirmed it was an employee on their last day.

‘Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day. We are conducting a full internal review.’

Just before 7pm EDT, visitors to the 45th President’s Twitter profile were greeted with both a frustrating and confusing message: ‘Sorry, that page doesn’t exist! You can search Twitter using the search box below or return to the homepage.’

Twitter users were confused as to what could have caused the brief account shutdown with some correctly speculating it was deleted by Twitter and others wondering if the President did it himself. Others simply rejoiced:

‘Donald Trump doesn’t exist according to Twitter,’ wrote one, ‘I was there for the great vanishing of Donald Trump’s Twitter account,’ chimed another.

‘Feel like I need to re-evaluate my life choices after reflecting on my reaction to Trump’s Twitter,’ joked one correspondant.

‘The greatest trick Donald Trump’s twitter account ever pulled was making us all hope that it didn’t exist’ tweeted one.

A short time later, the account page reappeared and seemed to be functioning as normal. His government account remained active throughout.

Duysak said that Trump’s Twitter account was deactivated due to ‘a number of coincidences – very little probabilities which randomly occurred on my last day of work’

When asked about people’s reactions calling him a hero, he said: ‘[The Nobel Peace Prize] should be accepted by the one who deserves it. I don’t deserve to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize’

About half an hour earlier, Mr Trump had tweeted a video about his nomination of Jerome Powell to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Hundreds of Twitter users posted witty comments and memes on the social network enjoying the brief respite from the President’s feed.

‘@RealDonaldTrump finally became president… for those brief few minutes when his personal Twitter account was down,’ joked one user.

‘We’ll all remember where we were during the 10 minutes of peace while Donald Trump’s Twitter account was down,’ said another.

‘If Trump’s Twitter account did in fact get deleted, that would be the first bit of good news we’ve gotten in a while,’ another quipped.

The President’s account, which has almost 42 million followers has proved to be a vital tool in the way Mr Trump communicates to the outside work, it being the main channel of communication he uses to disseminate statements and attack his critics.