The day I got temp-banned from Twitter for offering somebody support by using British slang
I guess it had to happen eventually: my Twitter account has been temporarily blocked. But it’s why it’s been blocked that’s interesting.
Earlier today, this tweet from freelance musician Zephy found its way into my feed. It’s a bunch of screen grabs detailing a conversation he had with someone asking him to work for nothing, and being rude, annoying and aggressive when Zephy politely refused.
I replied as follows: “All I take from this is that guy is a massive wazzock and your rates are too low. He should have bitten your arm off for what you were offering.”
Immediately, my account was locked because: “You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm”.
There are multiple problems here. There was no targeted harassment. This was a direct response to someone, not the person he spoke with. There was no wishing someone harm. At first, I assumed my account was locked for use of wazzock, a British slang word for fool or annoying person.
Except. I now note that I suggested to Zephy that the wazzock in question “should have bitten your arm off for what you were offering”. To bite someone’s arm off is also British slang, and it means to get really excited about something, not to mean them harm. Clearly, Twitter’s algorithm does not understand this and locked my account. So I appealed.
Twitter just responded: “Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision.”
I’ll leave you to decide which word should best describe the people who made that decision — if indeed any people made it at all.
I have asked Twitter’s press team for comment and will update this article should they reply.