[Air-L] A Question About Twitter Suspensions

Tue Apr 20 06:56:05 PDT 2021

Is it just me or does it seems a fundamental problem that a user name that
is banned can be available again? It sounds like a video game in which you
can respawn with multiple lives, which I would think is a bad thing if
you're trying to moderate speech. I know there are all sorts of problems
with social media platform moderation, but this one seems particularly
naive. Sarah

Sarah Oates
Pronoun: she/her

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Philip Merrill College of Journalism
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On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 7:42 AM Stuart Shulman <stuart.shulman at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Marco,
>
> Thank you for the excellent and thought provoking paper. I have been
> digging into the data and the story is somewhat complex. There are accounts
> from December 2017 that have the "from_user" showing as suspended, while
> the same user on the same week generated Tweets that remain live on Twitter
> today. I have also found live RTs where the "from_user" account is reported
> as "does not exist" and there are other permutations that seem to defy the
> logic of account suspensions and account deletions.
>
> I hand labeled 1,500 Q-likely Tweets from the December 2017 set as follows:
>
> Code, Count, Pct.
> Suspended Account, 711, 47.40%
> Deleted Tweet, 509, 33.93%
> Q Signals, 165, 11.00%
> No Sign of Q 115 7.67%
>
> I have documented this research in the first 7 of the 33 videos here, but I
> feel there are still many unanswered questions:
> https://vimeo.com/showcase/7543134
>
> ~Stu
>
> Dr. Stuart ShulmanU.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach
> (#boycott #thebigsix)
>
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 10:29 AM Marco T Bastos <toledobastos at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Stu,
> >
> > Are you checking the usernames or the user IDs?if you’re checking the
> > usernames, chances are the live accounts were recreated after being
> removed
> > (new user ID, same username). When Twitter removes an account the
> username
> > is offered again in the pool of available handles, so banned users can
> > create a new account and take over their previous username. Suspension
> is a
> > bit different and AFAIK it doesn’t remove the username, but you may be
> > coming across a single username that existed over several user IDs. You
> may
> > find this piece helpful:
> >
> > https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002764221989772
> >
> > HTH,
> > Marco
> >
> > On Sun, 4 Apr 2021 at 14:48 <air-l-request at listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2021 12:05:45 -0400
> > > From: Stuart Shulman <stuart.shulman at gmail.com>
> > > To: "air-l at listserv.aoir.org" <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
> > > Subject: [Air-L] A Question About Twitter Suspensions
> > > Message-ID:
> > >         <CAJd4SndAuhOoiwVS1W7=
> > > oXjdCgBAzkSinLhPqVfMH3x7TNzq0w at mail.gmail.com>
> > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> > >
> > > When I try to display Tweets from December 2017 with clear QAnon
> signals
> > > (hashtags, buzzwords, other markers) many return the message "cannot
> > > display tweet - account is suspended," which makes sense given what we
> > are
> > > living through. However, I then go search for some of those same
> > suspended
> > > Twitter handles and find while some are indeed suspended, others are
> not
> > > suspended. Some usernames with hundreds of thousands of tweets that go
> > back
> > > to 2011, and were spreading #QAnon, #TheStormIsHere, #WhoIsQ, and
> > > #FollowTheWhiteRabbit and related content between December 8-12, 2017,
> > are
> > > alive and well on Twitter. I have not seen this before and I cannot
> > explain
> > > it. My question is: Can a Twitter account show as suspended for certain
> > > content on the same day it is live with older and more recent content?
> > Have
> > > others encountered this? Can an account suspension be revoked or else
> > > applied to only certain content? One example of many I ran into today:
> I
> > > have a record of a Q-centric Tweet from a suspended account but the
> > account
> > > itself is in fact live and following current other live Q-related
> > accounts
> > > that also are not suspended. It follows only 72 accounts (a dazzling
> > > collection of Q-related conspiracy experts) but has almost 5,000
> heavily
> > > MAGA-leaning followers, which takes a certain Internet dexterity to
> > > achieve. Is there a good paper out there on the legal and procedural
> > > actions related to suspended, semi-suspended, or suspended but then
> > > restored Twitter users?
> > >
> > > Dr. Stuart ShulmanU.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------
> > >
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