Twitter has certain policies in place that prevents users from posting certain things, such as threats, self-harm, and so on. However what’s interesting is that it seems that some users are getting suspended (temporarily) for old tweets that contained words/phrases that supposedly violate Twitter’s policies.While it is fair to get suspended for tweets that violate Twitter’s policy, these tweets have apparently been taken out of context. For example Twitter user @berges was asked by Twitter to delete a tweet he posted in 2010 that contained the words “kill me”, although to be fair the entire tweet reads, “100 bucks – Rent. ALL calls 20 Paise. All SMS 30 Paise. 250 calls and sms free. VMC 199. Now kill me. Or Vodafone. Or both. I’ll start PCO.”
Another user by the name of @aashnaaaugh was also suspended for a tweet that jokingly threatened another user. This seems to suggest that Twitter’s system might be taking things out of context, like that time a user was banned for making death threats against a mosquito.
According to a Twitter spokesperson, “Self harm is an extremely complex and sensitive issue with serious implications that we take seriously. We allow content from users where they express their struggles or seek help. However, we take down reported content that promotes or encourages suicide or self harm. Context is very important when it comes to Tweets using language which could pertain to self harm.”
“For example, a user could post ‘Craving Mexican food and my favourite restaurant is closed…I want to kill myself’ without any intention of self harming. As such, we do not remove these Tweets in an automated way and rely on bystander reporting as human review plays an important role.”
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