Live data from Hacker News

Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

jacquesmattheij.com

11–20 of 276 posts

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#11
post #9

I am sort of baffled by all the ink being spilt about Twitter. I still find it jarring that anyone reports on “tweets,” and that there is even a process to ‘appeal’ a decision made ‘about a tweet.’ Anyway, meta-commentary aside, this blog post is something of a mystery. I don’t know whether the author of the post actually wrote the tweet in question and is somehow trying to get back onto Twitter, or if his account wa…

From the author's account, it's clear to me that he didn't write the tweet.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#12
post #9

I am sort of baffled by all the ink being spilt about Twitter. I still find it jarring that anyone reports on “tweets,” and that there is even a process to ‘appeal’ a decision made ‘about a tweet.’ Anyway, meta-commentary aside, this blog post is something of a mystery. I don’t know whether the author of the post actually wrote the tweet in question and is somehow trying to get back onto Twitter, or if his account wa…

> I don’t know whether the author of the post actually wrote the tweet in question

It's in the title.

> or if his account was compromised despite him saying it wasn’t…

I'm not sure, it could be, it could be a hack of Twitter as well.

At this point I don't want to rule anything out because the only thing I know for sure is that I did not write that tweet.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#13
If you don't use Two-Factor Authentication, and you have a public profile, the question isn't if your account will be compromised, but when.

Apparently, for Mr. Mattheij, when was today.

The next question is "how do you safely recover your account". Hopefully this is a straightforward process, considering you have access to the email account associated with your Twitter account. Of course, Twitter needs to make sure that the attackers didn't also compromise your email account ...

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#14
post #13

If you don't use Two-Factor Authentication, and you have a public profile, the question isn't if your account will be compromised, but when . Apparently, for Mr. Mattheij, when was today. The next question is "how do you safely recover your account". Hopefully this is a straightforward process, considering you have access to the email account associated with your Twitter account. Of course, Twitter needs to make sure…

There is no way that my account password was compromised without a much more elaborate hack of Twitter, either that or someone social engineered them to change my password.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#15
I'm confused - was OP's account compromised, or not? It sounds like it was, but he doesn't seem very fussed about how it happened or keeping it from happening again, just annoyed that Twitter's response to it isn't faster. Is it this commonplace for twitter accounts to be taken over?

Also, is saying things like "Go die" an insta-ban on twitter? I don't use it but I thought it took more than that.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#16
post #13

If you don't use Two-Factor Authentication, and you have a public profile, the question isn't if your account will be compromised, but when . Apparently, for Mr. Mattheij, when was today. The next question is "how do you safely recover your account". Hopefully this is a straightforward process, considering you have access to the email account associated with your Twitter account. Of course, Twitter needs to make sure…

There is no way that my account password was compromised without a much more elaborate hack of Twitter, either that or someone social engineered them to change my password.

I think 2FA is to guard against someone gaming their "lost my password" process as much as against someone brute-forcing your pw.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#17

I'm confused - was OP's account compromised, or not? It sounds like it was, but he doesn't seem very fussed about how it happened or keeping it from happening again, just annoyed that Twitter's response to it isn't faster. Is it this commonplace for twitter accounts to be taken over? Also, is saying things like "Go die" an insta-ban on twitter? I don't use it but I thought it took more than that.

I'm also confused. How is Twitter supposed to know that the Tweet was made by the OP or was a compromised Tweet? When something is egregious what should Twitter do if it doesn't have resources to investigate whether the tweet was "intentional" or not, if action must happen quickly to avoid problems? And isn't a claim of "wasn't me" an easy claim whether or not it's true? I'm likewise confused. He says "What really pisses me off is that this is fairly obviously not my fault " But I can't find out where it is so obvious. Am I missing something? To an outsider it looks like a threat, without any indication that it wasn't made intentionally.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#18
post #9

I am sort of baffled by all the ink being spilt about Twitter. I still find it jarring that anyone reports on “tweets,” and that there is even a process to ‘appeal’ a decision made ‘about a tweet.’ Anyway, meta-commentary aside, this blog post is something of a mystery. I don’t know whether the author of the post actually wrote the tweet in question and is somehow trying to get back onto Twitter, or if his account wa…

> reports on “tweets,”

It's no different than reporting on anything else that someone says in a public forum.

Since there are real consequences for what you say in a public forum, it is understandable that there is an appeals process.

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#19
I'm assuming when the account is restored, the offending tweet will be gone, but I'd be interested to know if it was tweeted by an app that was authorized via OAuth (which one could see from the "source" attribute of the tweet).

That seems like the most likely scenario to my brain given that the author asserts there is no way their password was compromised (which I can believe).

Re: Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

#20
post #13

If you don't use Two-Factor Authentication, and you have a public profile, the question isn't if your account will be compromised, but when . Apparently, for Mr. Mattheij, when was today. The next question is "how do you safely recover your account". Hopefully this is a straightforward process, considering you have access to the email account associated with your Twitter account. Of course, Twitter needs to make sure…

There is no way that my account password was compromised without a much more elaborate hack of Twitter, either that or someone social engineered them to change my password.

or you have a keylogger on your computer, or were phished yourself
Post reply on HN