Contractor Who Disabled Trump's Twitter Explains What Happened

Earlier this month, Trump's Twitter account was briefly deactivated, making it impossible to access it or any of its content. The suspension was a brief one, lasting only 11 minutes, but they were enough to inspire both rants and praise. Some had speculated that the deactivation was the result of a rogue employee, but extensive details on what went down were never given.

A short while after the page was restored, Twitter had issued a statement explaining that "human error" had resulted in the accidental deactivation of the page. The human error was said to be the result of "a Twitter employee," raising questions about how much power a Twitter employee has over someone's account and why they were able to suspend the page.

In due time it was revealed that it was a contractor, rather than an employee, who had suspended the page. The reasons for that person's actions weren't known, though, and many wondered if it had been a rogue act, a way to leave the job with a bang, so to speak. As it turns out, that is correct.

The contract responsible for the account deactivation is Bahtiyar Duysak, who at the time was working as a contractor for Twitter under a work and study visa in the US. In an interview with TechCrunch, Duysak explains that he was working in a customer service role in a division at Twitter that receives reports from users.

It was near the end of his last shift that Duysak received a user report about Trump's account, and as a final act of sorts, he "put the wheels in motion to deactivate it," not believing it would actually happen. It did, however, several hours later, sending the Internet into a minor tailspin. Duysak ultimately called the action a mistake, though many have hailed him as a hero for what he did.

SOURCE: TechCrunch