INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Twitter announced this afternoon it will begin booting accounts off its service from those who have tried to evade their account suspension
The company says that the accounts in question are users who have been previously suspended on Twitter for their abusive behavior, or for
trying to evade a prior suspension
These bad actors have been able to work around Twitter attempt to remove them by setting up another account, it seems.
The company says the
new wave of suspensions will hit this week and will continue in the weeks ahead, as it able to identify others who are attempting to Tweet
following an account suspension.
This week, we are suspending accounts for attempting to evade an account suspension
These accounts were previously suspended for abusive behavior or evading a previous suspension, and are not allowed to continue using
Twitter.
mdash; Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) August 14, 2018
Twitter announcement on the matter & which came in the form of a tweet &
We asked the company for more information
It unclear, for example, how Twitter was able to identify the same persons had returned to Twitter, how many users will be affected by this
new ban, or what impact this will have on Twitter currently stagnant user numbers.
Twitter was not able to answer our questions, when asked
for comment.
The company has been more recently focused on aggressively suspending accounts, as part of the effort to stem the flow of
disinformation, bots, and abuse on its service
The Washington Post, for example, said last month that Twitter had suspended as many as 70 million accounts between the months of May and
June, and was continuing in July at the same pace
The removal of these accounts didn''t affect the company user metrics, Twitter CFO later clarified.
Even though they weren''t a factor,
Twitter user base is shrinking
The company actually lost a million monthly active users in Q2, with335 million overall users and 68 million in the United States In part,
Twitter may be challenged in growing its audience because it not been able to get a handle on the rampantabuse on its platform, and because
it makes poor enforcement decisions with regard to its existing policies.
For instance, Twitter is under fire right now for the way it
chooses who to suspend, as it one of the few remaining platforms that hasn''t taken action against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
The
Outline even hilariously () suggested today that we all abandon Twitter and return to Tumblr
(Disclosure: Oath owns Tumblr and TC
I don''t support The Outline plan
Twitter should just fix itself, even if that requires new leadership.)
In any event, today news isn''t about a change in how Twitter will
implement its rules, but rather in how it will enforce the bans it already chosen to enact.
In many cases, banned users would simply create
a new account using a new email address and then continue to tweet
Twitter means of identifying returning users has been fairly simplistic in the past
To make sure banned users didn''t come back, it used information like the email, phone and IP address to identify them.
For it to now be
going after a whole new lot of banned accounts who have been attempting to avoid their suspensions, Twitter may be using the recently
acquired technology from anti-abuse firm Smyte
At the time of the deal, Twitter had praised Smyte proactive anti-abuse systems, and said it would soon put them to work.
This system may
pick up false positives, of course & and that could be why Twitter noted that some accounts could be banned in error in the weeks
ahead.
We will continue this work in the coming weeks as we identify others who are attempting to Tweet following an account suspension
If you believe your account has been suspended in error, please let us know.https://t.co/RUWvNoQt2G
mdash; Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety)
August 14, 2018
Reached for comment, Twitter declined to answer our specific questions and said it could also not go into further details
as that would give those attempting to evade a suspension more insight into its detection methods.
This is a step we&re taking to further
refine our work and close existing gaps we identified,& a spokesperson said
&This is specifically targeting those previously suspended for abusive behavior
Nothing to share on amount of accounts impacted since this work will remain ongoing, not just today.
Updated, 8/14/18, 3:51 PM ET with
