Tuesday, 19 January 2021
Medieval Deathbot got suspended
Twitter, in all their infinite widsom, decided to suspend the Medieval Deathbot. I'm not sure why or exactly when, probably sometime around the new year since that looks like it's latest tweet (I can log in and see tweets, but can't do anything.) Back in October, it was locked because the auto-reply deaths either got repeatedly flagged as harrassment by people, or an algorithm caught them and decided that the bot was genuinely trying to threaten harm to people. I deleted the offending tweets and went as far as to delete ALL the reply tweets on that account since it had started some 7 years ago. It was like, 40k tweets or something. Ridiculous.
Despite all that, it seems to have been banned anyway. What's infurating is that I wasn't sent an email about it, or given an explanation. This has happened twice already to two other of my accounts since october--suspensions without emails and without any explanation or proof as to why it was a valid suspension. I can't get a human to look at the appeals for any account, and since I've had 3 so far banned, twitter has deemed me a violent, terrible person who shouldn't be on the site, and I'm not allowed to make any new accounts. I've never done anything violent or seriously wished harm on a person, never harassed anyone, never posted anything inflammatory or, I dunno, whatever else the TOS violations are. So I'm not really sure what's going on.
I'll try to see if there's some way I can bring the bot back. It's pretty bad timing to be having this go on, especially as I'm right now in the middle of finishing up the illustrations for the book and writing the intro so it can finally be delivered to the publishers.
I'll keep you all posted! For now, here's a little look at some of the art for the book!
Comments
Threaten individuals and whole countries with nuclear Armageddon: apparently ok.
Rogue medieval clerks: apparently a menace to society.
Hope you get to resolve the issue somehow...
On another note, I see that I pledged €25 and that this gets me the bookplate edition, but in the rewards the bookplate edition is €30? Am I missing something?
posted 20th January 2021
Twitter is becoming more and more boring. Constantly banning satire accounts and now banning Medieval deathbot which was a fantastic source of historical information and entertainment. Can't wait for the book to be released.
posted 20th January 2021
My God. I work in tech and see this is as an obvious example of technology run amok
posted 20th January 2021
It'll be an algorithm that sees 'death bot' and decides your Twitter account is a hosting a violent attempt to overthrow society. I know it doesn't have the same 'ring' to it but I'd bet "Ending Bot" or "Final Journey Bot" or "Cuddly Pussy Cat Bot" would survive the algorithms. No, I'm not serious about the last one!
posted 20th January 2021
The current algorithms on Facebook and Twitter is driving everybody mad. We’re all going back to Reddit.
However, there must be some way we can complain to Twitter en mass.
posted 20th January 2021
Do get in touch with the Free Speech Union they may be able to help you. https://freespeechunion.org/
posted 20th January 2021
Perhaps the thing to do is to join the exodus to another platform. The only way Twitter will take notice is if they lose users, I'm afraid.
posted 20th January 2021
This is appalling. I did notice that Twitter have apparently been deleting large numbers of accounts since the riots at the Capitol (possibly before) but clearly they don't read clearly the content of the individual accounts and have evident arrogant belief in the power of the algorithm over commonsense (and we've all seen where that leads in the UK with last year's A level results). Good luck with getting back on line - these huge monoliths, whether Twitter, Facebook or Amazon, are notriously difficult to reach when things go wrong.
posted 20th January 2021
Can't imagine how annoying that must be, I read an article earlier this month from someone who had something similar happen to their account. Gonna miss seeing that content on my timeline. It's especially annoying considering the rules of enforcement are supposed to be as follows,
"Unless a violation is so egregious that we must immediately suspend an account, we first try to educate people about our Rules and give them a chance to correct their behavior. We show the violator the offending Tweet(s), explain which Rule was broken, and require them to remove the content before they can Tweet again."
Welp, so much for that. I'm enjoying the book updates regardless and I can't wait for the release.
posted 27th January 2021
Done in by clerks, no doubt. Any updates about the book? Am eagerly awaiting the release!
posted 12th July 2022
Have you tried sending them a letter?
I had my account suspended and because it was so frustrating to try and reach anyone at twitter, I just wrote a good old fashioned letter and mailed it to their head office.
Within days the suspension was lifted, again without any communication, but if it worked for me, it may work for you.
posted 3rd February 2023