I broke the rules.

posted on

When I opened Twitter on Monday morning, I saw this:

Screenshot of parts of my Twitter profile that says: Your account is permanently banned. After careful review, we determined you account broke the Twitter Rules. Your account is permanently in read-only mode, which means you can't Tweet, Retweet, or Like content. You won't be able to create new accounts. If you think we got this wrong, you can submit an appeal.

After careful review, they determined that my account broke the Twitter Rules. Okay, let's have a look at the rules to get an idea of what could've caused this ban. You break the rules if your tweets contain content related to anything in this list:

I can assure you I tweeted nothing related to any of these things. Also, I didn't spam, I didn't try to manipulate elections, I didn't impersonate anyone, I didn't share synthetic or manipulated media, and I did not violate others’ intellectual property rights.

So, what happened? I have absolutely no idea! Here's a rough outline of the events:

  1. 21.10. Comment on Unas question

    On Friday Una asked on Twitter What do you want to see on the web platform next year?” and I responded “A native sr-only attribute.”. My reply got a bunch of likes and some retweets.
    So, nothing special happened here.

  2. 22.10. Hidden replies

    But then suddenly on Saturday people reported that they did't see my reply anymore.

    Screenshot Twitter. Instead of my reply it says 'this tweet is unavailable

    Bramus assumed that this was a bug in the Twitter app, but Šime pointed out that I got shadowbanned.

  3. 23.10. Contacted Twitter support

    On Sunday I contacted Twitter support and reported the ban. I told them that I got shadowbanned for no reason and I asked them to look into the matter. Being shadowbanned means that I can still like, comment, and tweet, but people don't see my content. Also, people can't search for my content on Twitter. For me, everything looks fine, but in reality I'm not reaching anyone. This is usually a measure against spammers.

  4. 24.10. Permanently suspeneded

    I woke up to the news that my account was permanently banned.

  5. 24.10. A reply from Twitter

    Later that day, I got a reply to my report:

    Hello,

    Thank you for contacting us.

    We do not block, limit, or remove content based on an individual’s views or opinions. In some situations, your Tweet may not be seen by everyone, as outlined in this Help Center article. You can find more information about shadow banning and our efforts to promote a healthy public conversation in our blog post.

    If you would also like more information on how to control your Twitter experience, see this help article.

    Please see the Help Center Article for more information:

    Best,
    Twitter

    In the linked post it says We do not shadow ban. You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow.. This is a lie. There's proof in the screenshot above.

  6. 24.10. Submitted an appeal

    I've submitted an appeal and asked them again to look into the matter and tell me what happened.

  7. 25.10 You ❤️

    Today I had multiple mails in my inbox from people offering their help and asking if I was okay. You're amazing, thank you! ❤️ I'm fine, it's just annoying.

    Thank you everyone for @-ing Twitter Support (Bernhard and Matthias) and retweeting, and especially thank you Bernhard, Matthias, Mike, David, Jenn, Jens, and Sara for getting in touch via e-mail.

    8. What's next? I don't know. I'll just wait for their reply. I'll keep you updated in this blog post.

  8. 26.10 Support and reply from Twitter Support

    I'm blown away by the amount of support I've received. Literally 100s of tweets @-ing Twitter-Support. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

    Twitter search for 'Bring back @mmatuzo, @TwitterSupport' showing dozens of results by all kinds of people.

    Some of you even put the message in their Twitter name. 😁

    Zack Leathermans profil showing his portrait, bio and twitter name 'Zack Leatherman–bring back @mmatuzo'

    And others created memes. 😁

    Bring back @mmatuzo paid for by the Manuel Hates Lobester Foundation written in Lobster font Crowd from the TV show Southpark protesting and holding up signs that say Freedom for @mmatuzo, free @mmatuzo or @mmatuzo didn't do it.

    Other than that, nothing much happened except that I've filed another appeal and someone from Twitter Support replied to one of the tweets asking for a case number, which Max provided for me. Let's see what happens next.

  9. 31.10 no news

    I'm still suspended and I still haven't heard a word from Twitter. You can find me on Mastodon now.

Yours truly,
Manuel

PS: A div is still not a button.