‘I didn’t break any rules’: Man who disabled Trump’s Twitter account speaks out
Earlier this month, Twitter was in a brief uproar over President Donald Trump.
It wasn’t for anything he tweeted, but rather the 11 minutes on Nov. 2 that his account was disabled, cutting off access for his more than 40 million followers.
Twitter first called it an accident but later said a customer support employee did it while working their last day with the company.
Earlier today @realdonaldtrump’s account was inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee. The account was down for 11 minutes, and has since been restored. We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
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. https://t.co/mlarOgiaRF
— Twitter Government (@TwitterGov) November 3, 2017
On Wednesday, that employee revealed himself.
In an interview with TechCrunch’s Tito Hamze in Germany, Bahtiyar Duysak says the whole incident was a “mistake” and apologizes for it.
“I didn’t do anything on purpose,” Duysak said. “I didn’t hack anyone, I didn’t do anything that I wasn’t authorized to do. ... I didn’t break any rules.”
When asked why he’s going public now, he said he just wants to get back to “an ordinary life.”
“I had to delete hundreds of friends because reporters are stalking me and my friends on Facebook,” Duysak said.
Some people have joked on social media that he should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Would he accept it?
“It should be accepted by one who deserves it,” Duysak said, adding that he does not.
This story was originally published November 29, 2017 at 7:45 PM with the headline "‘I didn’t break any rules’: Man who disabled Trump’s Twitter account speaks out."