Posting here since I am curious if any friends on HN have faced the same AI based banning. I have had a Twitter account since like 2008 and they just did this- like folks on reddit are reporting appeals just get robo-rejected. Is there any way to reach a human at X? I have some SWEs and SREs in my linkedin account as second and third person contacts but reaching out there just feels wrong. Putting AI in charge of Auto banning 10+ year old paying accounts is insane. There is another thread on this same issue here https://www.reddit.com/r/twitterhelp/comments/1sfn3l4/has_an...
They do read the appeals. I know this because I was falsely permanently suspended, without lawful reasons and without prior notice, with an account in good standing, a few years ago.
After writing several appeals over the years, in which I even mentioned article 19 of the UN UDHR (which pretty much mentions everyone has the right of freedom of expression and freedom of speech), and after receiving several rejections with the standard boilerplate text I got a very angry human written reply from somebody working at the Safety and Security team mentioning amongst other things I should never try to appeal again, and that they would automatically reject every appeal if I would. Or at least, that was basically the gist of it.
And I tried it once afterwards, and they didn't lie about that.
This was after the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, by the way.
So yes, they do read appeals (even before the Elon purchase likely). But they don't care.
Most social media has been has been utterly untenable forever, but Twitter and Discord are the most troublesome in my experience. It's so hard to create and use a new account on those sites without the rigmarole of captcha (due to suspicious activity) -> banned (due to suspicious activity) -> captcha (due to suspicious activity) -> verify email (due to suspicious activity) -> banned (due to suspicious activity) -> verify phone number (due to suspicious activity). Then, want to follow someone, or join a guild? Hmm.. your account reputation is too low. Try again in a week?
I don't know how people do it. I can only figure it's my fault for running Linux or Firefox or not Signing in with Google™, upsetting the data harvesting overlords.
I've also been suspended for breaking their terms and services, even though I haven't done anything wrong. It was probably my VPN. Luckily, my account got unsuspended, but I ain't using that platform anymore
"X" is in a weird place now. The monetization of engagement absolutely wrecked the feeds from my cursory glance. Just ragebaiting, vague posting, abuse (for a while, every female posting would have someone in the replies doing "grok, put OP in a bikini" and it would post sexualized images of them). Someone vent viral by posting a picture of Steve Jobs' daughter (?), and people try to replicate that as that now generates money. Replies to posts are just bluechecks being insane, or farm accounts spamming unrelated stuff hoping to get impressions and generate some dollars.
I used to follow only cycling/urban related accounts for the town I live in. Most of them left, so maybe that's making it hard for the algorithm, but my feed is now just far right immigration propaganda by blue checks, or lots of US issues (I'm not in the US). Not a nice place to be, but I can see how it can be addicting / trigger something in the brain.
I created an account in X yesterday because I'm trying to get more involved into building in public and the social aspect of development and I was shocked to see nowadays you can pay for X premium where the more you pay, the more interactions you get to your tweets.
At the end I just deleted it and created an account into Bluesky instead.
As far as I know reddit does the same thing. If you don’t follow normal human patterns you will quickly get banned. I read some guy’s report where he got banned 8 times detailing each behaviour and indeed it was nothing crazy.
I'm not touching seedy X any more - if there's someone linking to it the 'toXcancel' extension shows me the content while shielding me from Musk's actual sht pit.
Same here. Premium account, years old, barely post, banned with no explanation.
What’s worse: no way to notify followers or export data after a ban.
Lesson here: Never outsource your identity or communication to a platform you don’t control, treat them as disposable channels, that might disappear any day.
We simply need open, decentralized or distributed platforms. Nostr is not that excellent, but it works, and have a potential to became "unified personal web platform", take a look at it.
My X account was banned about a week ago. I use X in an unusual way: I open up fifty tabs a day of people I want to read and see what they've posted in the past day. But I don't use the default feed at all. I often 'like' posts, but I very rarely post anything myself. I don't think I violated any X rules. But I can see why an algorithm think I look a little bit bot-ish.
I appealed the ban but AI declined my appeal. I couldn't circumvent the ban by using a VPN plus a different browser. I thought that would change my fingerprint enough to not be detectable, but perhaps I'm still detectable or perhaps my fingerprint through the VPN just looks suspicious.
Now I'm using something called "Gologin" that gives me a browser with a less unique footprint plus a residential IP in the USA. I have to pay for it. But at least I can use X still.
Sorry, but Twitter is only for bots now. Real humans need not log on. /s
That being said, I assume that it flagged the amount/frequency of likes or whatever other activity and thought it was suspicious. Probably used Grok to do that and it obviously isn't good at that.
X has been dead to me for years now. It's all Nazi propaganda, rage bait and CSAM. I honestly think it should be banned. Under Musk it became as bad as the ugly side of 4chan.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 42.6 ms ] threadThey do read the appeals. I know this because I was falsely permanently suspended, without lawful reasons and without prior notice, with an account in good standing, a few years ago.
After writing several appeals over the years, in which I even mentioned article 19 of the UN UDHR (which pretty much mentions everyone has the right of freedom of expression and freedom of speech), and after receiving several rejections with the standard boilerplate text I got a very angry human written reply from somebody working at the Safety and Security team mentioning amongst other things I should never try to appeal again, and that they would automatically reject every appeal if I would. Or at least, that was basically the gist of it.
And I tried it once afterwards, and they didn't lie about that.
This was after the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk, by the way.
So yes, they do read appeals (even before the Elon purchase likely). But they don't care.
I don't know how people do it. I can only figure it's my fault for running Linux or Firefox or not Signing in with Google™, upsetting the data harvesting overlords.
I used to follow only cycling/urban related accounts for the town I live in. Most of them left, so maybe that's making it hard for the algorithm, but my feed is now just far right immigration propaganda by blue checks, or lots of US issues (I'm not in the US). Not a nice place to be, but I can see how it can be addicting / trigger something in the brain.
At the end I just deleted it and created an account into Bluesky instead.
Real discussions with friends happen in group chats, without all the crap and noise.
What’s worse: no way to notify followers or export data after a ban.
Lesson here: Never outsource your identity or communication to a platform you don’t control, treat them as disposable channels, that might disappear any day.
I appealed the ban but AI declined my appeal. I couldn't circumvent the ban by using a VPN plus a different browser. I thought that would change my fingerprint enough to not be detectable, but perhaps I'm still detectable or perhaps my fingerprint through the VPN just looks suspicious.
Now I'm using something called "Gologin" that gives me a browser with a less unique footprint plus a residential IP in the USA. I have to pay for it. But at least I can use X still.
That being said, I assume that it flagged the amount/frequency of likes or whatever other activity and thought it was suspicious. Probably used Grok to do that and it obviously isn't good at that.