[Air-L] A Question About Twitter Suspensions

[Marco T Bastos]

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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