Twitter employee who deleted Trump’s account reveals himself
The Twitter employee who briefly deleted President Trump’s account has revealed his identity in a new interview with TechCrunch.
Bahtiyar Duysak deleted Trump’s account for a total of 11 minutes when he was working as a contractor in Twitter’s Trust and Safety division on the customer support team.
Duysak told TechCrunch that on his last day at the company, a Twitter user reported Trump’s account, and he then took the step to deactivate it, not expecting it would actually happen.
“I didn’t hack anyone. I didn’t do anything that I was not authorized to do,” he told TechCrunch. “I didn’t go to any site I was not supposed to go to. I didn’t break any rules.”
At the time of the incident, Twitter released a statement saying it was conducting an internal review of the situation. TechCrunch confirmed that the FBI is not investigating Duysak over the action. Twitter declined to confirm to TechCrunch that Duysak was the employee responsible.
Duysak was hailed as a hero by Twitter users, with many joking that he should win Time’s Person of the Year or the Nobel Peace Prize.
Duysak is of Turkish descent and was born and lives in Germany, but told TechCrunch, “I love America.”
Duysak told TechCrunch that he was coming forward because he wants to live an “ordinary life.”
{mosads}“I want to continue an ordinary life. I don’t want to flee from the media,” he said. “I want to speak to my neighbors and friends. I had to delete hundreds of friends, so many pictures, because reporters are stalking me. I just want to continue an ordinary life.”
“I didn’t do any crime or anything evil, but I feel like Pablo Escobar,” Duysak said, “and slowly it’s getting really annoying.”
Twitter has faced backlash for not suspending Trump’s account after some controversial tweets that appear to violate their terms of service, saying that Trump’s tweets are “newsworthy,” however offensive.
On Wednesday, Trump faced major backlash after retweeting a series of videos from a British far-right group that purported to show Muslims committing violent acts.
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