Nobody knew his name until now, but his actions have been all over the news for weeks. Bahtiyar Duysak, a German with Turkish roots, disconnected Donald Trump’s Twitter account while working at their headquarters in San Francisco.
The account remained offline for 11 minutes on November 2nd before getting it back online. Many people hailed him a hero, and some even said he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize for getting a hateful account off the internet, even if it only was for a few minutes.
Duysak, who is now back in Germany, had a student and working visa, and was in charge of complaints while working for the social media outlet. TechCrunch interviewed him in Germany and documented the story of what transpired that day.
“I didn’t hack anyone. I didn’t do anything that I was not authorized to do,” he said. “I didn’t go to any site I was not supposed to go to. I didn’t break any rules.”
He explained that it was just another day at work when he received a complaint about Donald Trump’s Twitter. He impulsively took the account down and started panicking, leaving the building while thinking about what he had just done.
Duysak claims he didn’t think the account would actually get taken down, apologizing for his actions despite claiming it was not on purpose. The 20-something-year-old didn’t realize the account got deleted until he saw it on the news.
Although Twitter didn’t leak any information about Duysak, he decided to come out of anonymity to live a regular life. “I want to continue an ordinary life. I don’t want to flee from the media,” Duysak told TechCrunch during the interview.
“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,” he said. Duysak says he wants to work in the financial industry now and forget about this situation.
Bahtiyar Duysak doesn’t think his actions merit a Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, he feels like a criminal since the incident. “I didn’t do any crime or anything evil, but I feel like Pablo Escobar,” he said, “and slowly it’s getting really annoying.”
This article was inspired by TechCrunch // Meet the man who deactivated Trump’s Twitter account