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Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

jacquesmattheij.com

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

#21

Post by jacquesm »

ineptech wrote: post #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.

> I'm confused - was OP's account compromised, or not?

I do not know. The tweet certainly looks like it was made by my account, but definitely not from this computer and definitely not using my password. I'm pretty precise about stuff like that and Twitter would be the least of my problems if my passwords were hacked. For now I am assuming either someone social engineered Twitter to change my password or a compromise of Twitter of some sort.

> but he doesn't seem very fussed about how it happened or keeping it from happening again

Lack of information... of course I'm 'fussed' but I just don't know. All I know is that as far as I can see my setup here is still secure and was not a factor in this.

> just annoyed that Twitter's response to it isn't faster.

No, mostly annoyed that Twitter would not detect a fairly obvious Joe-Job.

> Is it this commonplace for twitter accounts to be taken over?

Good question, I don't know.

> Also, is saying things like "Go die" an insta-ban on twitter?

Apparently, but even then: I didn't say that...

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

#22

Post by jsnell »

jacquesm wrote: post #12
wfhordie wrote: 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.

If somebody had that kind of an exploit of Twitter, is it really plausible they'd use it for such an inconsequential tweet and on your account? Seems like there would be far juicier targets.

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

#23

Post by mkmk »

wfhordie wrote: 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…

FWIW, the author is very prolific and sane on hackernews(at least as far as I've noticed), so the post could be considered more trustworthy than a random post by somebody who has never participated here before.

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

#24

Post by jacquesm »

rexreed wrote: post #17
ineptech wrote: post #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.

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 pi…

> How is Twitter supposed to know that the Tweet was made by the OP or was a compromised Tweet?

For starters: it would be interesting to see what IP address the tweet was made from, whether or not it was preceded by a password change or contact with Twitter support to turn the account over to someone else.

> 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?

Good question. That makes me wonder if they are able to operate safely at scale at all.

> And isn't a claim of "wasn't me" an easy claim whether or not it's true?

Yes. And yet: it wasn't me.

> 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. Obvious to whom?

To me, and presumably, to those who know me and presumably to Twitter employees who have access to a whole lot more data than I do.

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

#25

Post by usrn »

ineptech wrote: post #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.

For many years most accounts have been locked shortly after they're created. I had deep OTM puts on Twitter before Musk bought it since it's pretty obviously a dying platform without some substantial change.

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

#28

Post by sneak »

Twitter suspended my twelve year old account for most of a year without explanation.

Eight months later, my appeal worked and I got it back and was told it was an error in automated spam detection. Eight months! It was a 12 year old account. For those eight months I couldn't even get support to reply.

Twitter has been garbage for years. The app is a great idea, I hope it gets fixed.

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

#29

Post by jeremymcanally »

rexreed wrote: post #17
ineptech wrote: post #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.

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 pi…

There are several things they could check and factor into the score before banning someone. Client source (if the use the website 100% of the time and suddenly this was from the Android client for example), IP address (do they tweet from the U.S. exclusively and then suddenly they're tweeting from Moscow?), VPN affiliation (did this tweet originate from a known VPN egress?), and so on. These things _should_ be factored into the "omg ban this account" score IMO, but I have no idea if they are.
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