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Twitter Account Safety
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So your Twitter account was banned.
You may be wondering what to do now and why Twitter did ban or suspend your account out of the blue, right?
Well, there might be a number of reasons and most probably you may have violated some Twitter rules, either directly or indirectly (perhaps your account was reported for abuse).
Let’s see how to get your account out of this rut.
Why Was Your Account Banned?
The first thing you have to do is to review your Twitter usage and think of what you might have inadvertently violated.
It’s vital that this is the first step you take because you’ll need it later when you submit an appeal or work on fixing your account before you get it reviewed by a Twitter support team member.
Besides, doing this first will help work by exclusion to find out what the problem is sooner.
If you haven’t violated any rules…
Once you know that you didn’t violate Twitter’s rules, you can actually see if there are other reasons for the suspension, such as tweet abuse reporting.
Or maybe the Twitter automated algorithm simply got it wrong!
It happened to me while I was setting up a new Twitter account: the system thought there was something suspicious about my activity (not at all!) and suspended my new account.
I solved the issue within 48 hours by contacting support and explaining the situation. As soon as they unsuspended my account, they apologized for their mistake and for wasting your time.
Always remember to add a phone number to your account for verification, so you can get your Twitter account unbanned sooner.
But if you have…
If your account was reported for spamming, harassing, the selling of pyramid schemes, or hate-based tweets (that were reported or resulted in your account getting blocked by many users), things might be a little harder and you will have to come clean with Twitter and promise to never use the platform for something illegal or unethical.
To do that, read the next section.
How to Unban Yout Twitter Account: Submit an Appeal
The fastest way to resolve an issue is to use what the platform itself makes available for you.
In Twitter’s case, that’s the appeal form, introduced in April 2019:
If your account has been suspended or locked, you can login and go directly to this form to see the reason for the suspension and fill the form so Twitter can help you fix the issue.
If the suspension is the direct consequence of abuse reporting and you know that you have not violated any laws or promoted hate speech, and Twitter doesn’t help you or doesn’t respond to your request, you might want to seek the assistance of a lawyer.
However, think of that as a last resort and focus on writing a good description of the problem instead.
Make sure that you read Twitter’s help pages carefully and that you document everything you’ve done and you tell exactly what happened, what were your intentions and if you think there was a mistake.
If you apologize, promise to never break the rules again and stick to that promise.
How to Avoid Future Bans
Unbanning your Twitter is not the end of the world but be very careful because proprietary platforms that are also popular are also grown very strict in their rules (e.g. jokes that were once okay may be considered offensive now).
So here’s a quick 4-item checklist to avoid future bans:
- Always follow the rules and keep up with the updates of the service Terms and conditions
- Maintain a kind and respectful attitude when discussing sensitive topics (e.g. politics, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) in tweets
- Delete instantly any tweets that you may have written out of anger or other emotion that gets in the way of item #2
- Don’t share illegal content or content that violates copyright
Follow these four tips to keep your account safe of bans.
Conclusion
Fear not! Like everything, even a Twitter ban can be fixed easily if you follow the simple advice given in this article.
Take good care of your account to avoid problems in the future, and to your success!
By Luana Spinetti, enthusiastic B2B Copywriter and Consultant for the Marketing and Tech industry since 2009. Also a cartoonist for hire since 2004.
