The Guy Who Shut Down Trump’s Twitter for 11 Minutes Speaks: "I Didn’t Break Any Rules"

2017 has been rough, but for eleven sweet minutes earlier this month, all was right in the world.

The Twitter account for U.S. President Donald J. Trump was silenced for 660 seconds on November 2, in what we then believed to be a triumphant act of protest by some rogue employee.

Unfortunately, Trump’s account was eventually restored, allowing him to retweet a series of videos from a far-right outfit and espouse murder conspiracies in a public forum (both of those things happened today, btw).

But TechCrunch managed to find the man responsible for the temporary take-down—a contractor who did the deed on his final day of work at Twitter—and it can’t be coincidental that they’ve done so in the lead-up to Time Magazine announcing their Person of the Year.

According to TechCrunch, the contractor is "a twenty-something with Turkish roots who was born and raised in Germany" named Bahtiyar Duysak.

(Twitter declined to confirm Duysak’s identity or role to TechCrunch.)

Duysak was reportedly working customer support as part of the Trust and Safety division, dealing with complaints against offensive or illegal tweets.

Turns out the deactivation of Trump’s account couldn’t have been more ordinary behind the scenes: Someone reported the account on Duysak’s final day, so he took the action to deactivate it.

He apparently never believed it would actually be deactivated, calling it a "mistake".

However, he’s confident he won’t be charged with any crimes.

"I didn’t hack anyone," he said.

"I didn’t do anything that I was not authorised to do… I didn’t go to any site I was not supposed to go to. I didn’t break any rules."

Duysak’s now living in Germany, feeling "like Pablo Escobar," but wishing he could "continue an ordinary life".

"Slowly it’s getting really annoying," he added.

Photo: YouTube (TechCrunch)