The man was a contractor in the US but has since moved back to his native Germany. Photo / Facebook
The man was a contractor in the US but has since moved back to his native Germany. Photo / Facebook
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump's Twitter account was deactivated for 11 minutes.
Twitter reactivated the account and blamed the incident on a "rogue employee" on his last day.
The man has now come out and identified himself in an interview with US internet and tech news site TechCrunch.
His name is Bahtiyar Duysak. He worked as a contractor in the US but is now back in his native Germany.
The man responsible for briefly shutting down Trump's account, who many say should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, says he did not break any rules and was simply following standard procedure.
Trump's Twitter account is regularly reported by users for violations of the terms of service of the social network. In fact, many have publicly questioned how he has not received a permanent ban, considering the quantity (and the depth) of those violations, which include threatening another nation with nuclear violence via Twitter.
Duysak, working for customer support as part of Twitter's Trust and Safety division, was having a normal "last day at work" type of day, juggling friendly goodbyes with tying up loose ends.
Part of his daily job at the company included the triage of customer complaints and reporting of accounts for activities such as offensive and illegal tweets and harassment.
It was getting close to the end of his last shift when another complaint came through about the president's account.
A Twitter user reported Donald Trump's account and Duysak started the procedure to deactivate it.
He then clocked out of work for the very last time and left the building, unaware that he was about to become a hero to so many, even if only for brief moments.
Several hours went by before Duysak was alerted to what was happening. It turns out his triage had gone further than others and the account had, in fact, been deactivated. He read the news online.
He told TechCrunch he never thought the account would actually get deactivated and referred to the whole incident as a "mistake".
"I didn't hack anyone. I didn't do anything that I was not authorised to do," he told the news site.
"I didn't go to any site I was not supposed to go to. I didn't break any rules."
The man, who says he "loves Twitter" and "loves America", has now decided to come forward as he is back in his native Germany, trying to find a job and does not want to have to worry about the story coming out and hurting him in the future.
"I want to continue an ordinary life. I don't want to flee from the media," he said. "I want to speak to my neighbours 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," he said, "and slowly it's getting really annoying."
