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Twitter blocked my account for a tweet I did not make

jacquesmattheij.com

71–80 of 276 posts

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

#72
post #28

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.

I was suspended from Twitter for "violating Twitter's policies" without further explanation or any indication of how those policies were violated. I didn't bother to appeal since I'm mostly just a lurker but I could see where this would definitely be irksome to someone who spent a lot of time on there.

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

#73
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.

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

> It's in the title.

Your claim that you didn't is in the title, sure. It doesn't sound like GP is convinced one way or another though.

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

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to use SMS for 2FA on twitter. Have you checked: https://twitter.com/settings/apps_and_sessions

That brings up a page where Twitter wants my phone number, which they can't have.

You're assuming at this point they want your number.

It is not unreasonable to assume that this has been changed to the attackers number.

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

#75
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 factor…

Yes, I'd be quite interested in all of that, but of course only Twitter can see this.

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

#76
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are way out of line.

Not really. If you weren’t a prolific HN commenter this would be the top comment here. Right now you’re making an extraordinary claim with zero evidence. Pointing this out isn’t “out of line”. E: As it turns out, not only was I not out of line, I was also entirely correct. You wrote this tweet Jacques, you just forgot. It’s not unusual at your age. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31240589 It’s time for you to ap…

Given that OP was making very pro-Ukraine statements and expressing their support for Ukraine on twitter up until that point, I believe it is extremely unlikely they just got drunk and tweeted "Die on the job..." to a pro-Ukrainian publisher called The Kyiv Independent. Even their HN reputation aside, it just doesn't make sense.

I am one of the first people to always take OP statements with a gran of salt in cases like this, but imo there is nothing indicating their own fault here at all. I am simply struggling to imagine any set of circumstances here under which that could have happened other than a hack/account takeover.

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

#77

Quoted post unavailable.

> Sorry OP but I just don't believe you. I could not care less. > Seems pretty obvious you made a mistake and are trying to wiggle out of it. Which is human, so I don't blame you. I have said plenty of dumb things online. Except that that isn't the case. So sorry. My reputation is worth a lot more to me than a tweet or even my entire Twitter account.

No post body was provided.

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

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> It's no different than reporting on anything else that someone says in a public forum. Public forums, like in-person public forums, have much more context and many more barriers to being heard. In a supply-and-demand, signal-v.-noise sense, I find Twitter to be extremely low value, on the order of whatever the homeless fellow on my street shouts about (it’s usually extremely racist, homophobic, and disconnected fro…

> I find Twitter to be extremely low value, on the order of whatever the homeless fellow on my street shouts about

A lot like the real world. If a homeless person is standing across the street from the Whitehouse shouting nonsense no one cares. If POTUS comes out and says we're going to war, it matters. That's why what people say on Twitter is reported on in the news.

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

#79
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.

Reporting on tweets is the modern version "man on the street" interviews from television news. That is to say, essentially worthless. They never tell you how many interviews they did or how many tweets they read before they found the one or two they chose to support their predetermined narrative.
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