Twitter Algorithm Suspending Accounts - Any Writers Had This Happen?

tiddlywinks · Mar 10, 2018

So...wasn't quite sure where to stick this discussion, but I saw Angela James of Carina Press repost a rather interesting (and alarming) thread discussion on the recent spat of Twitter randomly suspending accounts. Anybody else seen this?

WHY TWITTER IS RANDOMLY SUSPENDING ACCOUNTS AND HOW TO AVOID IT: A THREAD

https://twitter.com/madblackthot2/status/972529437903392768?s=21

At first, I was like "oh, well, huh, this doesn't apply so I wonder why an editor is linking to this." Then I kept reading...and kinda went "YIKES!" as I read through the possible examples. (It's Twitter so it's a quick read

)

Mulling over what to do or whether I'd possibly have anything that would affect me. I really don't want to have to search through my blasted tweets to make sure I didn't say something off-the-cuff like "kill me now" in relation to a hard day or trying to get through edits, for example. But I'm sure I have.

Question is whether I say enough other trigger words that the Twitter bots handing out suspensions would get me. Because it's not at all like I have conversations with other writers about killing characters, plot bunnies involving evil murderous Brownies, threatened to violently harm other writers for sending me accordion music videos (*cough* ElaineA *cough*) or heck, plotting to murder my spouse on occasion when he does things like eat my ice cream and then refill the container with ice blocks and love post-it notes...

-ahem-

I'm also scratching my head on the DMCA issue. I completely understand if you uploaded someone's content without their permission. But this doesn't include linking out to YouTube videos posted by the artist channels, right? I would assume not...then again, when one assumes...

*sigh*

Anyway, this was what was running through my head as I read through this.

I don't run any promotions yet, so I don't have to worry about that little algorithm tweak-out, but I imagine some others may?

Also wondering if any AWers have had this happen, or know of fellow writers on Twitter who have had their accounts suspended because of this?

ETA: This is not meant to appear insensitive to Twitter's intent behind this (though it's clear intent versus execution is a wee bit problematic). I'm just looking at this algorithm suspension issue completely from a writer using Twitter's social platform for her own plot bunny devices perspective.

MaeZe · Mar 12, 2018

Doesn't someone have to complain on the DMCA stuff?

[continues reading link]

MaeZe · Mar 12, 2018

Teens selling retweets? Why those little entrepreneurs. I don't understand the mechanics of that one.

[continues reading link]

MaeZe · Mar 12, 2018

This is a weird one: Due to being banned by this, I lost almost 5000 followers of #TheResistance. If anyone recognises me, a former “vendor of buns”, please help me get my followers and friends back.

[Read enough]

Not sure what I think about it. I don't Tweet, just have an account so I can read other people's.

I'm glad they may be addressing the Russian bot farm thing.

I get it they don't want Twitter to be clogged with spam sales. Sorry about your promo being collateral damage.

Albedo · Mar 12, 2018

They won't ban Nazi accounts and they let certain arseholes threaten nuclear war, but they'll kick us normals for naughty words or saying 'kill me'?

The worst company. Truly.

AW Admin · Mar 12, 2018

The Verge Twitter has suspended a number of accounts responsible for ‘tweetdecking’
“The accounts were known for stealing jokes or for making tweets go viral with mass retweets”

The Independent Twitter has suspended a number of popular accounts after they were accused of stealing tweets or "tweetdecking" - the practice of mass retweeting posts in order to force them to go viral.

NY Mag Twitter Suspends Some of Its Most Popular and Annoying Accounts

This is Twitter responding to deliberate attempts to artificially leverage re-tweeting, and accounts plagiarizing other accounts. I don't see this as something you could do accidentally and be unfairly penalized for.

CathleenT · Mar 13, 2018

I haven't run across any suspended accounts, although I have seen a few tweets in feeds become unavailable to like--I forget what they called it.

Don't swear, don't use killing in any form... Hmm...the only problem I could see are hashtags where you tweet part of your book. I think all my books have violent moments, and those often make the best tweets because they're short. I haven't been doing those for a while now, and besides, surely Twitter understands that these hashtags were meant for fiction writers. Still, that might be something to avoid in the future.

Thanks for the heads-up, winks.

Polenth · Mar 13, 2018

A way to check your tweets is to search for your Twitter username plus likely words. So I searched for "polenth kill" as one of my searches. I removed a few things where I was talking about killing people (in video games) or hitting people (for martial arts), but the context was not clear in that tweet. People I follow have been banned for "kill me now" used as an idiom, so don't assume it's obvious that you didn't really mean you were going to kill yourself.

CathleenT · Mar 13, 2018

How do you search your tweets, Polenth? I don't even know how to do that. Is it a Google search, or do you somehow do it inside of Twitter? And how do I delete a tweet?

Thanks. I know I tweeted some violent lines a couple years ago for #1lineWed. One in particular, my protag shot a mountain lion. Or my dragon flamed a stockbroker. (I had some tender love scene stuff, too--it wasn't all violent. Just saying.)

CathleenT · Mar 14, 2018

Okay, in case anyone is also wondering how to go about searching and deleting tweets, I figured out how.

I searched inside Twitter. Put in my name and the keyword kill into the search box on the upper right. I didn't even know we could do that. I've only used it to search hashtags and other Twitter users before.

Maybe a dozen old tweets popped up. They mostly talked about killing characters or words, but I deleted them anyway. To do that, click on the little down arrow on the top right. Deleting the tweet is the second-last option (at least for now, Twitter does change this stuff from time to time).

I have no idea if it was necessary, but I guess it never hurts to be careful. The conversations were all old anyway, and I certainly don't need any problems from them.

Thanks again, winks and Polenth.

tiddlywinks · Mar 14, 2018

Sorry, gang! I was away on a work trip the first part of this week. I also see I've been transformed into burnt toast in my absence, but I digress...

MaeZe said:
Teens selling retweets? Why those little entrepreneurs. I don't understand the mechanics of that one.

[continues reading link]

I know, right? Apparently they made little Tweet gangs behind the scenes using TweetDeck, as Lisa mentioned, and they were selling via people basically 'advertising' or trying to go viral via their accounts with massive followers.

AW Admin said:
The Verge Twitter has suspended a number of accounts responsible for ‘tweetdecking’
“The accounts were known for stealing jokes or for making tweets go viral with mass retweets”

The Independent Twitter has suspended a number of popular accounts after they were accused of stealing tweets or "tweetdecking" - the practice of mass retweeting posts in order to force them to go viral.

NY Mag Twitter Suspends Some of Its Most Popular and Annoying Accounts

This is Twitter responding to deliberate attempts to artificially leverage re-tweeting, and accounts plagiarizing other accounts. I don't see this as something you could do accidentally and be unfairly penalized for.

Indeed - I saw that whole bit and wasn't worried about getting flagged as one of these Tweetdeckers. Although I swear there's some of that nonsense going on in the writing world - I've seen a handful of accounts in the past all tweeting the exact same nonsense (like every tweet). Small beans compared to these kids, but still annoying. If they catch these troublemakers, I have no issue with that.

I do have qualms about the algorithm that is automatically suspending accounts for suspected self harm or violence. 1) On the self harm side, do we really want to be silencing someone's cry for help? That seems like a bad idea. 2) On the violence side, that's where I thought authors might accidentally get caught in the fray. See further below.

Polenth said:
A way to check your tweets is to search for your Twitter username plus likely words. So I searched for "polenth kill" as one of my searches. I removed a few things where I was talking about killing people (in video games) or hitting people (for martial arts), but the context was not clear in that tweet. People I follow have been banned for "kill me now" used as an idiom, so don't assume it's obvious that you didn't really mean you were going to kill yourself.

Thanks for that data point, Polenth. I had wondered about that. The reason why it's not obvious and they are getting caught is because it's an algorithm and auto suspends based on the algorithm. There isn't a human doing the review. So, ugh.

But good to know. And good suggestion for the easy fix. Guess I know what I'll be doing on my Twitter account tonight.

Cathleen, glad this was useful to you as well! I'm just concerned some of us may get caught in the crossfire of this larger kudo.

Twitter Algorithm Suspending Accounts - Any Writers Had This Happen?

tiddlywinks

Chaser of Shineyyyy Plot Bunnies

MaeZe

MaeZe

MaeZe

Albedo

Alex

AW Admin

CathleenT

I write

Polenth

Mushroom

CathleenT

I write

CathleenT

I write

tiddlywinks

Chaser of Shineyyyy Plot Bunnies