click to see this shocker!

I have terrible news. The Gods of Twitter have given me the snip. I’m outta there. I’m gone. And I don’t know why.

The first hint that something really bad had happened came when I tried to check on my Twitter buddies from twhurl on my office PC. I kept getting a “can’t authenticate” error. After head-butting my monitor a couple of times I logged on to my Twitter account using a browser – and discovered THIS! (see screengrab)

My account has been suspended for “strange activity”. I can tweet no more it seems.  Of course, I surfed like lightening over to the support page to find out what the hell was going on. There I learned:

1. Account suspension occurs when an account is flagged for suspicious activity. One or more of these things may cause an account to be suspended:
2. Terms of Service Violations
3. Technical Abuse
4. Spam Investigation

As far as I know I am not guilty of any of these horrid tweets against humanity. But I did notice over the last 24 hours that somehow tweets claiming one could “gain 500 followers in a day” were emanating from my account. There were two of them.

I have not had a chance to investigate how this as happened. I didn’t figure two of these things could get you suspended – 200 for sure, 50 maybe, 20 perhaps. But two?

I presume this is what has caused my account to be suspended but I cannot be sure. Did I maybe auto-tweet one blog post too many or what?

Now, in the society where I live – even here in deepest, darkest South Africa – there is something called natural justice. If I am accused of something,  I can expect to be presented with the charges. I can mount a defence or provide an explanation. But not, it seems, in the Twitterverse.

I have no idea what I am guilty of and have been provided with no opportunity to defend myself. I have sent a beseeching “ticket” to Twitter support. Will they respond? Gods of Twitter, can you hear me?

I have spend dozens of hours building my Twitter audience of over 1000 followers and now that is all gone it seems in a single arbitary moment.

I will report further from the wilderness as I attempt to find my way back into the Twitterdom.

Farewell, fair cruelty. I know not if we shall meet again.

By Andrew Trench, husband to Grubstreet Gal, Daily Dispatch editor – and formerly a twitizen known as @trencha

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