Twitter: Is this goodbye?

Twitter unblocked our account, the "deactivate" button appeared again, and we hit it.

Twitter deserves credit for the quick handling of whatever the problem was. We don't know if the account was suspended because some sensitive reader complained or if we were trapped by an algorithm. The latter is more likely.

The blogster has one suggestion:
If Twitter posts a tweet and then runs some automated check for a rules violation that results in suspension of an account, why don't you give the tweeter a chance to do something about it? Just for the "content" rules, I am not talking about the spam and aggressive follower stuff.

Yes, someone @Twitter has suggested this before -- we hope. And it was declined -- we assume.

But here is the deal.

Make a "potential rules violation notification" an optional advanced feature. Send me -- well, not me, but you understand -- an email saying, hey, that word "bollocks" has triggered a violation.

Do you really want publish the tweet as is?

Of course, there are all kinds of counter arguments but I'll bet that Susan B. Anthony dollar* (minus shipping and handling) that enough of the users you want on your service will be grateful.

If you don't believe me, run a test, an "optional optional" test and see where it takes you.

Life is too short, and support time is too expensive for the "bollocks" tweets.

The last tweet that went through and most likely tickled the algorithm in a very sensitive place was "Bollocks to scrotum ratio".


* Search the blog if you are curious about the provenance and the role of the Susan B. Anthony dollar.