Sunday 24 July 2016

The tweets @jack doesn't want you to see

Like many of you, I had my Twitter account suspended July 19, right around the time Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) got the permanent boot, igniting the #FreeMilo twitterstorm. I watched and participated from an alternative account as the hashtag shot to the top of Twitter's worldwide trends. It remained trending overnight.

I was suspended for 12 hours with no recourse, then required to "delete" my allegedly offending tweets (users have no choice but to "delete" offending tweets if they want to regain access to their accounts -- tweets which have already been purged by Twitter anyway). The first offending tweet was an image encouraging Leslie Jones to chill out. The second wasn't even directed at her.

Other users returning to their locked accounts have shared screencaps of the tweets Twitter forced them to delete, too. I am struck with the urge to catch 'em all: