Twitter Is Now 'Temporarily Limiting' Accounts That Misbehave
Twitter has been targeting abusive activities and accounts with a growing array of features and methods, and the latest among them appears to be a sort of 'throttling' that temporarily limits the extent to which a particular Twitter account can be viewed. News about the limitations surfaced via the affected users themselves, who have shared the notice they received from Twitter.
Per the notice sent to users, one example of which is below, Twitter is punishing accounts that it determines have violated the social network's rules, doing so by limiting 'certain account features.' The notice below reads, "We've detected some potentially abusive behavior from your account, so only your followers can see your activity on Twitter for the amount of time shown below."
>automatically get limited cause I said retard
I'm just considering leaving Twitter, fuck them pic.twitter.com/2NZpOPmlo2
โ ๐บ๐ธ Drybones ใ ๐ฝ๐ (@Drybones5) February 14, 2017
The message then includes a specific time duration with minutes and hours during which one is basically on account probation. There's a button that says "Continue to Twitter," which must be clicked to initiate the timer countdown.
While the limitations aim to reduce instances of abusive and unwelcome behaviors on Twitter, the method is not without its controversy. The message itself seems to indicate that some accounts may be unfairly targeted, as the message says the restrictions were implemented due to the detection of potentially abusive behaviors. This indicates that the entire process may be less than accurate at times, and there's no clear method for appealing the punishment.
SOURCE: Buzzfeed