Twitter suspensions
may suspend accounts, temporarily or permanently, from their social networking service. There have been concerted campaigns to shut down terrorist organizations and accounts that promote terrorist action, most notably those promoting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in the mid-2010s. Suspensions of high-profile individuals from Twitter are unusual; they often attract media attention when they occur.
Policy
Users who are permanently suspended from Twitter, based on alleged violations of Twitter's terms of service, are not told which of their tweets were the cause. They are told only that their accounts will not be restored, and they are told which of Twitter's rules the company claims were violated.In addition to community guideline policy decisions, the Twitter DMCA-detection system and spam-detection system are sometimes manipulated or abused by groups of users attempting to force a user's suspension.
In January 2019, Twitter formally provided information on instances where governments have attempted to utilize Twitter for "foreign information operations".
Some commentators, such as technology entrepreneur Declan McCullagh and law professor Glenn Reynolds, have criticized Twitter's suspension and ban policies as overreaches of power.
History
Between 2014 and 2016, Twitter suspension were frequently linked to ISIS/ISIL-related accounts. A "Twitter suspension campaign" began in earnest in 2015, and on one day, April 4, 2015, some 10,000 accounts were suspended. Twitter repeatedly shut down accounts that spread ISIS material, but new ones popped up quickly and were advertised with their old Twitter handle; Twitter in return blocked those in what was called an ongoing game of Whac-A-Mole. By August 2014 Twitter had suspended a dozen official ISIS accounts, and between September and December 2014 it suspended at least 1000 accounts promoting ISIS. Twitter said that between mid-2015 and February 2016 it had suspended 125,000 accounts associated with ISIS and related organizations, and by August 2016 had suspended some 360,000 accounts for being associated with terrorism.In January 2016, Twitter was sued by the widow of a U.S. man killed in the 2015 Amman shooting attack, claiming that allowing ISIL to continually use the platform, including direct messages in particular, constituted the provision of material support to a terrorist organization. Twitter disputed the claim. The lawsuit was dismissed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, upholding the Section 230 safe harbor, which dictates that the operators of an interactive computer service are not liable for the content published by its users. The lawsuit was revised in August 2016, providing comparisons to other telecommunications devices.
Twitter suspended multiple parody accounts that satirized Russian politics in May 2016, sparking protests and raising questions about where the company stands on freedom of speech. Following public outcry, Twitter restored the accounts the next day without explaining why the accounts had been suspended. The same day, Twitter, along with Facebook, Google, and Microsoft, jointly agreed to a European Union code of conduct obligating them to review " majority of valid notifications for removal of illegal hate speech" posted on their services within 24 hours. In August 2016, Twitter stated that it had banned 235,000 accounts over the past six months, bringing the overall number of suspended accounts to 360,000 accounts in the past year, for violating policies banning use of the platform to promote extremism.
On May 10, 2019, Twitter announced that they suspended 166,513 accounts for promoting terrorism in the July–December 2018 period, stating there was a steady decrease in terrorist groups trying to use the platform owing to its "zero-tolerance policy enforcement". According to Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy and Trust and Safety Lead at Twitter, there was a reduction of 19% terror related tweets from the previous reporting period.
In September 2017, Twitter responded to calls to suspend U.S. President Donald Trump's account, clarifying that they will not do so as they consider his tweets are "newsworthy".
In October 2017, Twitter posted a calendar of upcoming changes related to enforcement. Among other things, Twitter promised to provide "a better experience for suspension appeals," including a detailed description to the user of how a suspended account violated the rules.
In November 2017, Twitter gave a deadline of December 18 to comply with their new policy, adding: "You also may not affiliate with organizations that—whether by their own statements or activity both on and off the platform—use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes." On December 18, the accounts of several high-profile organizations were suspended.
Incidents
Rose McGowan
In October 2017, actress Rose McGowan said that Twitter had suspended her account for 12 hours after she repeatedly tweeted about former film studio executive Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct toward her and others. Twitter explained that McGowan's account had violated its privacy policy because one of her tweets included a private phone number. According to The New York Times, "Many Twitter users expressed outrage over Ms. McGowan's account being locked". After the tweet was removed, her account was unlocked several hours before the 12-hour ban was set to expire. A Twitter representative stated, "We will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future." Later that day, software engineer Kelly Ellis, using the hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter, urged women to shun Twitter for 24 hours, beginning at midnight, in solidarity with McGowan and with "all the victims of hate and harassment Twitter fails to support." Several activists, celebrities, and journalists joined the boycott. Others criticized the level of organization and the fact that it was only 24 hours.2018 fake followers purge
On July 11, 2018, The New York Times newspaper reported that Twitter would start deleting fake follower accounts to increase the authenticity of the platform.The issue of fake follower accounts was highlighted in 2016 when trolls, and interference using both human-operated and bot accounts in the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, leveraged the reach of Twitter and initiated voter deception.
Several celebrities and public figures lost substantial numbers of followers from their Twitter accounts before and after the purge. These included Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres, Jack Dorsey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ari Fleischer, Pope Francis, Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Kathy Ireland, Paul Kagame, Ashton Kutcher, The New York Times, Shaquille O'Neal, Barack Obama, Katy Perry, Queen Rania of Jordan, Rihanna, Cristiano Ronaldo, Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, Twitter, Variety magazine, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, and YouTube.
U.S. president Donald Trump said that social networks such as Twitter were "totally discriminating" against Republican Party and conservative users. Twitter and its CEO Jack Dorsey repeatedly clarified that the reduction in the followers count was part of the platform's efforts to cut down on spamming and bot accounts. Dorsey's own account lost about 230,000 followers in the purge.
On July 27, 2018, Twitter's stock went down by 20.5%, with one market analyst stating that it may go down even lower. The user base declined to 325 million, down from 326 million.
List of notable suspensions
2011–2015
| Individual/account | Description | Date | Duration | Reason given for suspension |
| Courtney Love | Musician and actress | July 2011 | Main account suspended | Account suspended after Love filed a defamation suit against Twitter. Love now uses a new account. |
| Anders Behring Breivik | Far-right terrorist, perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks | July 2011 | Permanent | After Breivik was arrested, his account was hacked by Anonymous, but was not initially suspended. |
| Guy Adams | Journalist | July 2012 | Temporary | Temporarily suspended for publishing the email address of an NBC executive during the 2012 Olympics; Twitter later apologized to Adams. |
| Al Qassam Brigade | Military wing of Hamas | January 2014 | Moved to new accounts | Unknown. |
| Phil Mason | Atheist and anti-feminist vlogger | September 2014 | Temporary | Use of abusive language towards Anita Sarkeesian. |
| Godless Spellchecker | Atheist blogger and podcaster | January 2015 | Temporary | Repeatedly suspended for alleged targeted abuse or harassment. |
| Chuck Johnson | Alt-right blogger | May 2015 | Permanent | Banned for an alleged violent threat against DeRay Mckesson. |
| Jalbib Al-Jazrawi | ISIL member | July 2015 | Permanent | Making a death threat against Nasser Al Qasabi. |
| George Zimmerman | Known for shooting an unarmed African-American child | December 2015 | Permanent | Posting tweets containing revenge porn. |