On an emotional rollercoaster in recent days thanks to Twitter (or should it now be X?)!

  

A blue (and black) bird I briefly spotted in Victoria Harbour (So 

briefly that I couldn't get as clear a shot of it as I would have liked!)

 

I've been on an emotional rollercoaster over the past 72 hours thanks to Twitter (or, X, as it looks to have been rebranded by the man who referred to himself for a time as the Chief Twit).  Things were as usual (or, at least, as usual as they have been since Elon Musk's takeover) when I logged out of the platform on Saturday night.  But when I logged in on Sunday morning, I got a notice that my account had been suspended!

 

Some time back, my account had been temporarily disabled.  In that case, seconds after I Tweeted what was alleged to be an offensive Tweet, I was informed of that decision and, also, of which Tweet had specifically triggered it.  Because of the specificity of that information, I was able to quickly ascertain what had happened: i.e., that Twitter had mistaken a Cantonese surname I had typed out (Ho) to be an American slang that is a pejorative (as in the shortform of whore!).  And after I appealed Twitter's disabling decision by pointing that out, I received an acknowledgement within minutes that I was indeed correct (and had not been offensive!) and my account was quickly fully operational soon after.

 

This time around though, I wasn't informed of what Tweet had triggered the suspension.  So in the email exchange with regards to my appeal, I couldn't be as specific and merely stated that there must have been a mistake in suspending my account since I didn't think I had done anything wrong!  And the automated reply I received seemed rather vague too: a "we will look into it" and "it might take around 3-5 days to make a decision" kind of affair!

 

For those who haven't realized: I got a Twitter account back in August 2021 -- and/but even though I've been on that social media site less than two years (and for far shorter time than I've had a blog and Facebook account), it's been the place where I feel like I'm shouting into a void the least.  After Elon Musk took over though, I have had moments when I feared that Twitter would (suddenly) die; so I've now also established an account over at Bluesky.  And for a couple of days, I've felt like I experienced what it's like to have Twitter dead -- with my not having been able to access Twitter on Sunday, and all of yesterday too!   

 

While there are a number of people/accounts that I interact with only on Twitter, there are some who I now also interact with on Bluesky (and others on Facebook, or/and *gasp* in "meatspace" (as opposed to cyberspace)).  On Sunday, I alerted the latter group to my Twitter suspension predicament.  Many of these friends and allies then went and spread the word on Twitter, and (even) appealed to Twitter Support to unsuspend my account on my behalf!

 

Late on Sunday, and also at various points on Monday, I got word (on Bluesky primarily) that I was far from the only person who had had their Twitter account suspended during that 24-48 hour period.  The more I heard about this, the more I moved away from my initial suspicions that my account suspension had been the result of mass reporting by wumao and/or tankies (as has been the case for some "yellow" (i.e., pro-democracy) Hong Kongers) or that I somehow had caught the attention and incurred the ire of the Chief Twit -- and more towards the idea that Twitter was experiencing its equivalent of Instagram's account suspension glitch last October.  

Even so, I was not prepared to be told (by a friend) when I got onto Facebook this morning that my Twitter account had been unsuspended/reinstated!  Cue disbelief at first, then relief upon getting confirmation that it was the case.  And after successfully logging (back) onto Twitter and seeing the "Welcome back" messages and those to Twitter Support on my behalf, I must say I'm feeling really happy -- and both appreciative and appreciated!  

 

It is really nice to know that I have friends and allies who really went to bat for me.  And while there are some who think their actions had no effect, I like to think otherwise.  At the very least, I think they helped Twitter to figure out that there were accounts being suspended for no good reason and got it to fix the wrongs (and, hopefully, the glitch that caused it all)!   

And yes, I'll draw an analogy there with what's happening in Hong Kong and the world in general.  In that I do think it's better to make some noise about injustices and things that are wrong.  Okay, they may fall on deaf ears (a lot of the time).  But sometimes they might not.  In which case, silence would not have been the answer or as much help as those who went about pointing out the wrongs, right? :)