[Air-L] A Question About Twitter Suspensions

Tue Apr 20 08:55:47 PDT 2021

It’s odd alright and my own attempts to get some info on what’s going on haven’t gone too far. But keep in mind there’s a whole black market for Twitter handles out there, so retiring usernames upon the deactivation of an account is not a great solution from Twitter’s perspective. The problem of course is that “bad actors” are clearly exploiting this loophole which allows them to persistently recreate the same account (or is it a brand at this point?) and take it from the top. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

-- 
Marco T. Bastos

Sent from my iPhone. Apologies for brevity and typos. 

> On 20 Apr 2021, at 14:56, Sarah Ann Oates <soates at umd.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> 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
> 
> Professor and Senior Scholar
> Philip Merrill College of Journalism 
> iSchool Affiliate Professor
> University of Maryland
> College Park, MD 20457
> Email: soates at umd.edu
> Phone: 301 455 2332
> www.media-politics.com
> Twitter: @media_politics
> 
> Support the UMD Student Crisis Fund today.  
> 
> 
> 
>> 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
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > ------------------------------
>> > >
>> > > Subject: Digest Footer
>> > >
>> > > _______________________________________________
>> > > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> > > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> > > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
>> > > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>> > >
>> > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> > > http://www.aoir.org/
>> > >
>> > > ------------------------------
>> > >
>> > > End of Air-L Digest, Vol 201, Issue 5
>> > > *************************************
>> > >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
>> > http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>> >
>> > Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> > http://www.aoir.org/
>> _______________________________________________
>> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>> 
>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
>> http://www.aoir.org/