On essential services that are run by Kafka-inspired assholes

ETA: After two emails from Twitter telling me that the suspension was final and that I'd violated their "Impersonation" policy, someone signal-boosted to an actual human being at Twitter, who fixed it. This is a broken process and one that would screw over people who don't have a lucky contact. But for now, I'm glad I've got my digital life back.

So my Twitter account has been suspended for no reason I can find. My work one (@yendi), which, while it's less heavily used than the @tsalmoth one, is also more important from a professional point of view.

It was suspended overnight on Tuesday. I've gone through the proper channels, sending an appeal per their web form, waiting, sending a follow-up, etc. Nothing. And yeah, I ran through the list of posted rules, none of which (shockingly) I've broken. Hell, I don't even really piss folks off on that account (since it's not where I tend to post political or pop culture rants), focusing on educational technology and assistive tech issues.

Twitter, incidentally, has no fucking way to contact a human being. None. Yes, you can tag their support account (useless), or some one or two notable folks who work there (ditto, so far), but there's no actual customer service group, not even the ones you get with Facebook. It's more comparable to Google in its structure than anything else. At this point, it's entirely possible that an eight-year-old Twitter account that was used for professional reasons, and on which I'd built a huge personal learning network, has been taken down by an anonymous drone in an office who might well have just misclicked a button while he was masturbating (or maybe masturbated furiously after deliberately suspending accounts for no fucking reason other than personal jollies). If that sounds uncharitable, well, fuck it. Twitter has earned my lack of charity.

And here's the thing: When Google fucked up my email a few years back, while it was frustrating as hell, took weeks tor resolve, etc, I could still have walked away from the ecosystem and started anew (and in fact did, to a certain extent). Email works no matter what service you use.

With Twitter, I can't. Yes, there are other microblogging sites like identi.ca, and tons of other social networks ranging from Tumblr to LJ to even loosely-connected WP blogs. All of those are great (well, not the other microblogging sites, to be honest), but what makes Twitter work is the other people. I can leave, but that will mean absolutely nothing if everyone else is there. The same applies to Facebook, of course, and to any similar network. Basically, the service has become essential, and since we're not actually customers*, there's no "customer service" we can turn to, and no choice.

So I get to sit here and wonder why I've had a major part of my professional life swiped from me with no reason given, no one to contact, and nothing to do but wait. And there's not a fucking thing I can do about it, because Twitter has no fucking reason to give a shit that it's abusing power, and, in fact, if I do get this part of my digital life back, all I'll end up doing is embracing it again**.

Yeah, this is a wonderful fucking future we live in.
ETA: It gets worse! Literally as soon as I posted, I got a reply:



That is, frankly, bullshit. I've imitated no one, yet Twitter is accusing me of impersonation. Un-fucking-believable.


*Not news, but when a service is free, that makes us a part of the product, not the customer)

**Although I'll make sure to at least make a list of who I follow, so if I'm shafted again, at least I can try to recreate part of my digital life.

On essential services that are run by Kafka-inspired assholes

ETA: After two emails from Twitter telling me that the suspension was final and that I'd violated their "Impersonation" policy, someone signal-boosted to an actual human being at Twitter, who fixed it. This is a broken process and one that would screw over people who don't have a lucky contact. But for now, I'm glad I've got my digital life back.

So my Twitter account has been suspended for no reason I can find. My work one (@yendi), which, while it's less heavily used than the @tsalmoth one, is also more important from a professional point of view.

It was suspended overnight on Tuesday. I've gone through the proper channels, sending an appeal per their web form, waiting, sending a follow-up, etc. Nothing. And yeah, I ran through the list of posted rules, none of which (shockingly) I've broken. Hell, I don't even really piss folks off on that account (since it's not where I tend to post political or pop culture rants), focusing on educational technology and assistive tech issues.

Twitter, incidentally, has no fucking way to contact a human being. None. Yes, you can tag their support account (useless), or some one or two notable folks who work there (ditto, so far), but there's no actual customer service group, not even the ones you get with Facebook. It's more comparable to Google in its structure than anything else. At this point, it's entirely possible that an eight-year-old Twitter account that was used for professional reasons, and on which I'd built a huge personal learning network, has been taken down by an anonymous drone in an office who might well have just misclicked a button while he was masturbating (or maybe masturbated furiously after deliberately suspending accounts for no fucking reason other than personal jollies). If that sounds uncharitable, well, fuck it. Twitter has earned my lack of charity.

And here's the thing: When Google fucked up my email a few years back, while it was frustrating as hell, took weeks tor resolve, etc, I could still have walked away from the ecosystem and started anew (and in fact did, to a certain extent). Email works no matter what service you use.

With Twitter, I can't. Yes, there are other microblogging sites like identi.ca, and tons of other social networks ranging from Tumblr to LJ to even loosely-connected WP blogs. All of those are great (well, not the other microblogging sites, to be honest), but what makes Twitter work is the other people. I can leave, but that will mean absolutely nothing if everyone else is there. The same applies to Facebook, of course, and to any similar network. Basically, the service has become essential, and since we're not actually customers*, there's no "customer service" we can turn to, and no choice.

So I get to sit here and wonder why I've had a major part of my professional life swiped from me with no reason given, no one to contact, and nothing to do but wait. And there's not a fucking thing I can do about it, because Twitter has no fucking reason to give a shit that it's abusing power, and, in fact, if I do get this part of my digital life back, all I'll end up doing is embracing it again**.

Yeah, this is a wonderful fucking future we live in.

ETA: It gets worse! Literally as soon as I posted, I got a reply:



That is, frankly, bullshit. I've imitated no one, yet Twitter is accusing me of impersonation. Un-fucking-believable.


*Not news, but when a service is free, that makes us a part of the product, not the customer)

**Although I'll make sure to at least make a list of who I follow, so if I'm shafted again, at least I can try to recreate part of my digital life.