In early November, a Twitter employee deactivated President Trump’s Twitter account. It was shut down for 11 minutes, which is a long time for our president, who is known for his flippant jokes, insults, rants and controversial retweets on the platform, reports Tech Crunch. Many people were overjoyed by the event.
No joke, the internet has nominated the Twitter employee who shut down Trump’s account for a Nobel Peace Prize
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) November 6, 2017
Twitter quickly announced that the shutdown was accidental. But reporters wouldn’t let it go. They wanted to figure out who had done it, and why. Tech Crunch found him: Bahtiyar Duysak, in Germany, where he was raised. Duysak is a twenty-something with Turkish roots. He was working as a contractor for a fixed term for the last part of his stay in the U.S., Tech Crunch writes. During his time at Twitter, he had been assigned to customer support as part of the Trust and Safety division. This team gets a notification when someone flags a tweet as offensive or illegal.
On Duysak’s last day, someone flagged Trump’s account. As a “final, throwaway gesture,” Duysak put the wheels in motion to deactivate the account, closed his computer, and left the building. But he says he never thought the account would actually get deactivated. Though many people have called for Trump’s Twitter to get shut down because of violent or threatening posts, Twitter has an exemption for “newsworthy tweets,” writes Tech Crunch.
Duysak said that he has been called a hero since this event, though he doesn’t feel like one. He is also not concerned about any sort of investigation because he hasn’t broken any laws. He said he is more concerned with the aggressiveness of the media. Maybe Tech Crunch’s profile of him will help calm that swell.
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