The rogue Twitter employee responsible for deactivating President Donald Trump’s personal account for 11 minutes said he “didn’t break any rules” but acknowledge he made a “mistake.”
Bahtiyar Duysak, a German citizen with Turkish roots, was working his last shift at Twitter’s Trust and Safety division in the U.S on a student visa when the snafu happened on Nov. 2.
Duysak told TechCrunch that someone reported Trump’s account and then he deactivated it without thinking.
He said he realized he made a “mistake” after watching the news of the @realDonaldTrump account.
However, Duysak said he didn’t think the account would be deactivated because of a Twitter policy that protects tweets that are considered newsworthy despite them violating the company’s terms of service.
“I didn’t hack anyone. I didn’t do anything that I was not authorized to do,” Duysak, who moved back to Germany, told the tech site. “I didn’t go to any site I was not supposed to go to. I didn’t break any rules.”
Trump’s more than 40 million followers wondered what happened when “Sorry, that page doesn’t exist!” appeared on his account. The page was restored 11 minutes later.
Twitter said it was conducting an internal investigation to prevent further incidents.
Duysak acknowledged that he only wanted to clear the air despite Twitter and the media wanting to know more information about him.
“I want to continue an ordinary life. I don’t want to flee from the media,” he said. “I didn’t do any crime or anything evil, but I feel like Pablo Escobar.”
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