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https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/12/top-assange-defense-account-deleted-by-twitter/
One of the biggest Twitter accounts dedicated to circulating information and advocacy for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, @Unity4J, has been completely removed from the site. The operators of the account report that they have been given no reason for its removal by Twitter staff, and have received no response to their appeals.
Any Assange supporter active on Twitter will be familiar with the Unity4J account, which originated to help boost the wildly successful Unity4J online vigils in which well-known Assange defenders would appear to speak out against his persecution. As of this writing, the account has been gone for a day and a half.
"About 8:45am CST on Thursday July 11, one of our Unity4J Twitter team members went to retweet on the account and noticed that the account was no longer accessible," reports pro-Assange activist Christy Dopf, one of the operators of the account. "When each of us also attempted to access the account we all received the same message 'Account Suspended'. Twitter did not send us a reason or violation for the suspension. So an appeal was submitted. We did receive correspondence that Twitter got our request and the case is currently open. Unfortunately we do not have a timeline on how long this could take."
[Ed. note: The linked story variously uses "suspended", "removed", and "deleted"; seemingly interchangeably. When attempting to load "https://twitter.com/Unity4J the response was:
Account suspended
This account has been suspended. Learn more about why Twitter suspends accounts, or return to your timeline.
so it appears that there may be hope for the account to be unsuspended; time will tell. --martyb]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 15 2019, @02:29PM (2 children)
This comment thread is beyond lame. How about some real discussion, for example, here's an assertion I agree with:
As for TOS violations -- shouldn't a TOS run both ways? If a company publishes a TOS, and then acts in a way contrary to that TOS or cites the TOS for suspension without providing any evidence, it should be liable for a violation of the contract between it and the users. The way TOS agreements are interpreted today however is totally one way and alleged violations of the TOS are used as carte blanche for any censorship. If a company wishes its users to be bound by a TOS, it should bound by those same terms. I wouldn't mind seeing legislation that requires any TOS suspension to be accompanied with the evidence of such violation and presumed damages akin to how copyright works, should a jury decide the reason was horseshit. If we're gonna do our public speech via private contract, lets make those contracts bilateral and put some teeth into them.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday July 15 2019, @02:30PM
clicky link:
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/top-assange-defense-account-deleted-by-twitter-ba5e4c3b3213 [medium.com]
same article but at Caitlyn's own (terribly slow, but hey, good on her for having one) website: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/12/top-assange-defense-account-deleted-by-twitter/ [caitlinjohnstone.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by corey on Monday July 15 2019, @11:00PM
What you need is a User's Union, or Social Media Union of Users. Then if you get a few thousand people together demanding TOS changes, or vetting retrograde changes to TOSs, then we might get some power back from the corps. But you'd have to use a third party platform, eg. Diaspora, to convene.
Social Media Users Tea-party (SMUT). "Darling, I'm going out tonight for a SMUT meeting, you get dinner on for the kids please."