I woke up yesterday to find my Twitter account locked, with the online social media platform claiming that I had violated Twitter rules by posting a reflection on the war in Ukraine.
Twitter Locks My Account…And Won’t Even Tell Me Why
Unable to login, I was offered the chance to delete the “violating” tweet in order to unlock my account. On the first page, it wasn’t even clear which tweet allegedly violated Twitter’s rules or which rule was violated.
I clicked on the blue “start” button and was informed that I had to delete one of my posts from Saturday, entitled, “The Battle For Kyiv Is Now.” I was also informed that the tweet violated “one of our rules” with a hyperlink to a long list of rules.
So which rule did I break?
Twitter did not say.
A red “delete” button was also present, but above it was a confession of guilt:
“By clicking Delete, you acknowledge that your Tweet violated the Twitter Rules.”
No, I acknowledge no such thing. There’s no way I am tapping on that red button.
Below the red button offered a chance to appeal:
“If you feel that your account has been locked in error, you can appeal by contacting our support team here.”
I clicked on that, and was asked to defend why my tweet did not violate Twitter rules. Again, this is a “guilty until proven innocent” process and I wasn’t sure how to defend a vague charge that I violated the “rules” when it still wasn’t clear what rule I allegedly violated.
So I simply typed:
“I write a popular blog. Have you read the post you claim violates the rules? Where is the violation? There is none.”
I then clicked submit and received a confirmation message that the Twitter team will “usually” respond “within a few days” but “some issues may take longer.”
In the meantime, my account remains locked and I refuse to delete that tweet.
Two minutes later, I received the following response from Twitter:
Abuse?! Does Twitter really think that I harassed, intimidated, or used fear to silence another person’s voice? I certainly don’t do that on Twitter and don’t even do that on my blog (hence the circus known as the comments section).
My hunch, and this is just a hunch, is that this has to do with the Russian trolls that have been visiting Live and Let’s Fly since the invasion of Ukraine. I have to imagine that the Twitter process is somewhat automatic if it receives one or more allegations of a flagrant violation of Twitter rules.
But if that is the case, that is a dangerous weapon against speech and it appears Twitter does not have the manpower to expeditiously investigate appeals.
I’d be curious to know if any readers work for Twitter and might be able to shed light on whether my account was automatically locked or whether a human eye looked at my “violation” before locking my account.
CONCLUSION
My Twitter account is currently locked and I am still not clear what rules are violated or in what sense “abuse” can be alleged based upon my musings about the Ukraine conflict.
Hopefully an actual eye at Twitter will look at this, but if Twitter accounts can be locked based upon baseless allegations from Russian trolls, we have a big problem.
I’ve long been neutral on the issue of regulating social media platforms like Twitter, but this issue and the fact that the Twitter has become, in a sense, a “public square” may cause me to revisit that determination.
Has your Twitter account ever been locked on the basis of a false charge? How long did it take to restore account access?
Welcome to the cesspool that is Twitter. A place where a former US President is banned but Putin has free reign to post propaganda. Then again the founder looks like Rasputin.
Well they each put out the same stuff praising each so other, so it just cuts down on the redundancy.
Of course The Orange Menace should be banned. And jailed but that’s for another day.
I also just got blocked from Twitter I think for saying mean things about Putin and the GOP who went to Russia. I think Twitter gets leaned on by right wingdingers.
I guess you can try to grab @LiveAndLetsFly over on Truth Social before someone else does…
LOL….could you imagine who would read it? I’m sure they’d think it was a website dedicated to the Beatles.
Switch over to Mastodon or one of the federated services, Matthew.
So, we need thought/content police to protect the fight for democratic values? Banner day in the Orwell household.
@ Matthew — It is amazing how many lies Trump’s entourage can spew on Twitter, but you post something benign and get locked out. My advice is to stop using all Twitter and Facebook platforms.
Surely, you must be joking? Any pro-Trump tweets run the risk of the account being suspended. To even suggest that Twitter has ANY bias that favors anyone on the right is ridiculous. Give me a break.
If anything, Matthew’s tweet was too conservative for them. And that violates their fluid “terms of service”.
Surely you must be joking, or straight out lying. Twitter and other social media platforms allowed Trump to collude with Russia and post non-stop ‘tweets’ and other propaganda for over 5 years before he was cutoff after his failed coup. You call that ‘leftist fascism’? You people truly believe your own lies don’t you…..how pathetic.
Perhaps you should remove your ‘stogie’ and stop reading the propaganda you’re clearly addicted to. Playing the contrarian card and supporting a war criminal like Putin isn’t looking so good this week.
Couldn’t agree more. Twitter has outlived its usefullness and has become a habitation of dead people like in bible Babalon.
Out of all the social media, Twitter is by far the most 1984-like absolute BS cesspool. It’s a hivemind of clueless celebrities and leftists who are holier than you because they have a blue check beside their name.
And I know the leftist bots here would be like “hurr durr go to Parler”. and I would say the same about such social media; it’s also a hivemind of clueless celebrities… and extreme-right-wingers.
I would say, don’t come back, lol. No loss there, only saved brain cells.
Twitter is a joke. Free speech doesn’t exist.
Twitter can set its own rules concerning speech, to a degree, but this seems rather arbitrary and unjustified.
In the US, private companies like Twitter aren’t required to provide a soapbox, megaphone or space for voices or content that they choose not to host.
Just like I have no free speech rights to use your home as my publishing center without your consent, so with having no free speech rights to use Twitter as my media distributor beyond what Twitter whimsically allows.
I acknowledge that, but as Twitter becomes the “public square” we could see that change, just like private shopping malls becoming “public” in terms of first amn speech on the premises. Not trying to simplify the issue at all. But when a private company becomes a quasi-public forum, there is varied jurisprudence on how it should be treated.
While a state can prohibit private shopping malls from using state trespass laws to block peaceful speech/expression in the open areas of the malls, I don’t recall that kind of ruling opening the door to making the malls have a requirement to maintain the content deposited in the open areas of the shopping malls. Let’s say Twitter is like the open area of the shopping malls and the “suspension-inducing” post is the deposited content left behind unintended in the open area of the shopping mall. Janitorial services come up and clean up the deposited content. I doubt I would have much of a leg to stand on in federal court nowadays if challenging the content removal — especially since the judiciary is chock full of corporate apologists and the whole institution has a very strong pro-corporation/business bias.
I don’t like it, but their “property, their rules” is an increasingly hard thing to successfully fight.
Don’t disagree. It’s a tricky issue.
This is why the Civil Rights Act is “problematic.” If a business is my property, I should be able to serve (or not serve) who I wish, right? Nazi Trumpist or Marxist trans activist, neither should be entitled to my services. Once the state starts deciding which classes are “protected,” we have lost all pretense of equality under the law.
So says the platform that banned Trump while he was president, but who still freely allows Putin to tweet away without restriction. Leftist fascism at it’s finest.
Trump wasn’t banned until he tried to stage a coup. Putin and anything putin adjacent should also be banned. I don’t think any leftists identify with putin, just the 24% of Trump voters in a yougov poll that don’t think the invasion was unjustified.
It’s a private company it can set its own rules. Fascism it is not. Stop whinging like a child.
Big Tech has been blatantly carrying water for the DNC and the administrative state for the past several years. Private censorship at the behest of the state is unconstitutional. Have you actually seen any of the stuff on Hunter’s “Russian disinformation” laptop? We’re still waiting for the “fact check.” Hunter openly jokes about his father’s dementia and complains about having to kick up money to the Big Guy. Why do you think he was so desperate to get paid by folx affiliated with corrupt, authoritarians states like Ukraine and Red China? Making the nut for the entire Biden clan was a yuge responsibility.
Putin is a right-wing thug. He even had his favorite neo-Nazis whom he supported as long as they did his business the way he wanted it done.
The bias of major platforms is to prop up the in-power and status quo supporters at the expense of other voices. The idea that Twitter coddles the left-wing at the expense of the right-wing is very far removed from reality.
Even Jack Dorsey admitted that Twitter employees are so overwhelmingly liberal that conservative employees don’t feel safe to express their opinions. I know there are studies that say Twitter’s algorithms amplify right-wing tweets, but I don’t know it they address the uneven enforcement of suspensions and bans. I don’t think I need to tell you how those who didn’t uphold The Narrative of the past few years have been silenced. Recently the account Defiant L’s, which merely quoted other accounts without commentary to demonstrate leftist hypocrisy, was suspended. So, is quoting liberals now misinformation or violence?
Will the last person using ‘Twitter’ please turn out the lights and switch to anyone else that is useless or could guve a s***? Another useless web site bites the dust
I would not be quick to make a false confession. They do that in Communist countries.
I purposely posted false information about Covid but nothing happened. I made it so silly that it couldn’t be mistaken as bad advice because I am actually for smart anti-Covid behavior.
I believe that Twitter is not part of your business strategy so I would fight it for now and not confess.
With ‘twitter’ the lights are on; but no ones home. Only a computer with an out of date algorithm.
Did you post links to sensitive videos without marking them as such?
No
(You can see the post)
I only use LinkedIn as social media and it is starting to become a sh.t show. I despise Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, etc… The world was much better without them. Totally biased and only want to spread the news they want you to know. It is dirtier than sewer.
You’re not needed there especially if you post far-right wing fake news
You may be welcome in Parler
Exactly. Dead mens bones. It definitely needs a little more than a makeover. It needs more than a face book or a face lift either one. It needs to be laid to rest and embalmed by a PROFESSIONAL.
It makes no sense. I’d love to hear if this was an algorithm or flagged by Russian bots as you note.
Stop using twitter, facebook and There are several other options that don’t and won’t ban your speech because it doesn’t align with the company’s political views. And twitter is the internets toilet, a backed up, overflowing toilet, reminiscent if a Mexican Texaco station next door to a burrito food truck.
That’s how we feel when you delete a comment you don’t like even though we follow your rules and guidelines 😉
Perhaps some pro-Russian “moderating” forces went after your Twitter account because of your subject matter.
It’s truly ridiculous that they suspended your account and yet claim the protections from being held accountable for content on Twitter on the (false) basis of not exercising editorial control over the content.
There are a number of trolls out there, some paid, to flg content that goes against their beliefs or those of the payee. Sad but true.
In a bigger sense beyond something unnecessary as twitter with the lack of in person offices and hiding behind web pages or overloaded phone systems you can get stuck in a frustrating no mans land. For example I have been trying to get my father’s inheritance as a beneficiary at Vanguard for months but I can’t do it online or via the phone due to my previously having had an account and even though it is zero, it is causing problems. They claim filling out paperwork and mailing via US mail will fix it. If not my only other option is via legal means. Very frustrating.
You see similar things with travel and hours long hold times because you can not do some items on line. Social media is a disaster. There was a good episode on The Orville, Seth Macfarlane’s sci fi show where they visited a planet and everything was done by popular vote including legal and medicine. Sadly we are getting close to it.
The problem is that anyone can anonymously flag people, complain, claim harassment and the result is you are guilty until proven otherwise. The issue with that, beyond the obvious, is that actual people are not looking at these things. Or the appeals. So you get locked into the system until you keep pushing and finally get to the point that humans look at the complaint and see that it’s absurd. Further, you are never able to see the complaint or origin so as to understand prior to launching a full on push for more than automated reviews and responses.
I’ve looked at the post and there is nothing within it that is even remotely close to being questionable. Actually, nothing you write approaches even borderline. Kyle though has been risky in the past but has gotten better.
This is why these flags need to be either better monitored or the person who flags needs to be revealed publicly so as to limit actual abuse from the other end. It’s completely insane. Basically, someone can accuse you of anything on these platforms and you never know who they are and have to jump through hoops to find anyone to actually look at it.
One question, the photo you used for the post, is it within your rights to publish it? Is it stock? It’s the only thing I can imagine someone to file a complaint.
Could be the image, I suppose…you’ll note at the bottom I pulled it from a Twitter feed. It is a stock photo, not from this conflict.
Come on Matthew, the cause is in your name. You got flagged because: 1) Your first name has M like someone named Trump, and 2) your last name has a T like someone named Trump, therefore…censored. In all seriousness, you cannot be too surprised – Twitter was eventually going to reach down and snare those who did not march to their belief structure, oops – guidance. Not Russian bots or trolls – Twitter did this.
Mathew, you do not need Twitter, you blogs success has come from you interesting blogs on this site. Please, do not coincide them them. Thank you for your continued stories about travel in this troubling world.
I have reread your post of Ukraine and find nothing offensive in it, I too pray for those poor people there.
The bigger issue here is the actions taken by Russia, not some people’s feelings.
“BuT ThEy’Re A PrIvAtE CoMpAnY”……..works both way dude.
“BuT ThEy’Re A PrIvAtE CoMpAnY”……..works both ways dude.
Welcome to the party, Pal!
Wait, was that a Die Hard reference?
I suggest you open an account on gab.com
Grain of Sand Appeals To Beach Regarding Unfair Treatment By Ocean “Overlords.”
Get. Over. Yourself.
Tweets are like Amex points. They own them & can delete them for any reason. You agreed to their terms of service, which says as much. Social media isn’t the public & your free speech isn’t guaranteed there. It’s an advertising platform & you’re the product.
If companies push the limits “too far”, states may take action at the state level that limit the ability of companies to abuse their customers/users/suppliers in the state.
Internet content-hosting companies that make a business of using user-supplied posts/comments to generate money but apply editorial power on the content could find themselves facing selective — even potentially biased — state-level action to expand the space in the state for free speech/expression to some limited/biased extent. But at least until people are legally allowed to run naked on the streets and around shopping malls “public” areas, some may say the people really don’t have free speech/expression protected beyond that selectively supported by biased parties with more influence in the order of the day.
Welcome to the club. You’re right that these social media companies don’t have a right to censor or ban when they claim to be public forums. Any social media company that allows governmental agencies or politicians to broadcast to the public no longer has a right to ban and censor users because they’ve become a public forum where the right to petition the government is absolute. Twitter for instance does not just allow politicians to be members in a private capacity but also an official capacity.
You likely didn’t violate any rules with your content, however, many do because these social media companies write discriminatory, selectively applied, and arbitrary rules to silence specific groups. Take Reddit for example. They say they don’t allow any views or content that can foster hate of historically marginalized or vulnerable groups but apparently hate is allowed to be directed toward White people, conservatives, or Christians. Their site would be bankrupt if no hate was allowed so they changed the rules to allow hate by its users toward Whites, conservatives, Christians, people advocating traditional values, and traditional economics. In a supposedly public forum, one group is silenced and one group is empowered.
Conservatives states and counties could fix this by issuing warrants for all mid level managers and above of each social media company. It doesn’t matter what the courts say because that’s after the fact. It would have served its purpose by then. Unfortunately, conservatives don’t know how to play to win. They’ll just keep writing strongly worded letters instead of doing anything (in the image of Trump who talked big but was incapable of delivering).
In the US, the government paying a private company to place government ads or using a private vehicle for distributing government statements doesn’t make the private company a public forum with the private company losing editorial power over the private company’s vehicle.
In an authoritarian country, it can be a different story. But that’s not America.
Houston, we – ah . . . we’ve had a (Big F-ing) problem: https://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtheamericanpresident.html – – –
“You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the “land of the free”.
I don’t need to click on the link. That’s from The American President, and it’s freaking awesome!
Welcome to life under Biden. Either toe the Democrat party line (don’t do anything to antagonize Putin) or be silenced. Both are legends in their own minds, to the extent their cognitive abilities still function.