Heads-Up...

[WillyT]

Welcome To The United Police States of America, Sponsored By Twitter
David Seaman, Credit Card Outlaw | BusinssInsider
Dec. 18, 2011, 1:20 PM

<snip>

Imagine my surprise this morning when, without warning, my shiny new Twitter account (@d_seaman) was suspended and taken offline. No more tweets for you. You now have 0 followers.

My crime? Talking too much about Occupy Wall Street (I'm not an Occupier, but as a blogger and journalist it strikes me as one of the most important stories out there -- hence the constant coverage), and talking too much about the controversial detainment without trial provisions contained in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would basically shred the Bill of Rights and subject American citizens to military police forces. The same level of civil rights protection that enemy combatants in a cave in Afghanistan receive!

But no, my tweets were 'annoying our users,' according to Twitter's suspension notice.

Well, not so much: nearly everyone following me appreciated my coverage of this issue, when few others in the media have had an interest in the NDAA or the widespread Occupy turnouts all over the country last night.

If they didn't appreciate it, ignorant bliss is only an 'unfollow' away. So why was I suspended only for covering two very serious news stories, and offering my own brand of commentary? I wasn't harassing users. I wasn't spamming. I wasn't hawking affiliate or porn links or any of the trash that should get one swiftly suspended from Twitter. (I've received some spam direct messages already; funny that those aren't suspended, but I was.)

<snip>

Link: http://www.businessinsider.com/welcome-to-the-united-police-states-of-america-sponsored-by-twitter-2011-12



UPDATE 1:19pm ET: I am apparently not the only user booted today for discussing NDAA and Occupy movement protests. See the screenshot below.

[gateley]

1. Wow. Scary. nt

[tawadi]

2. That's crazy

Thanks for the heads up.

[Spazito]

3. Wow!

I don't follow twitter but, as Mr. Seaman points out, if people don't like his tweets, just "unfollow", seems simple to me. For Twitter to suspend his account for "annoying it's users".......well, that seems like a pathetic excuse and not a valid reason.

[Hutzpa]

4. My fear is this is going to get worse

with MIC getting all the funding from Congress and the troops coming home from Iraq there
is no telling how dangerously close we are to becoming a police state.

The sad truth is the only employer now in the United State is the MIC, they are recruiting people
into all sort of jobs just so they can watch the American citizen.

It will get to the point where 50% working for MIC will be watching the other 50% non MIC employee which is the rest of the American populace.

This is where I see us heading and unfortunately the politicians are not going to save us.

All spiraling out of control real fast.

[DCKit]

7. What you said, plus...

What's going to happen when all the returning veterans with PTSD and those who learned to love killing merge back onto our civil society and into our civilian police forces?

That scenario has been bothering me for years.

[Laelth]

5. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Ohio Joe]

6. Reading through the comments... It looks like he made up the reason his account was suspended

"@Henry Blodget: Done. Emailed you the suspension info from Twitter and the message I sent to them. I agree with some other readers that the most likely scenario is that a bunch of users who are against NDAA or OWS discussion, for whatever reason, may have banded together and sent spam reports at the same time about my account as a way to silence me with an automated suspension -- this seems a lot more probable than Twitter swooping in & directly censoring users, but either way, it is something they definitely need to address.

If any political discussion around the world can be censored by taking advantage of a spam report, that's a problem. Twitter shouldn't have automatic suspension at all. It should be reviewed by a human being, especially when the subject matter is political.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/welcome-to-the-united-police-states-of-america-sponsored-by-twitter-2011-12#ixzz1gvnxjNES"

That twitter has an automatic suspension based on complaints until they can review it is neither wrong nor a surprise. I don't see where they did anything wrong and this guy really should be correcting his claim that twitter did this because of his topics.

[donttazemebro]

8. Thank God

You do know that we are about to go after all the right wing nut jobs right? We cannot allow them to warn each other of what is going on via social media. As soon as the internet kill switch is voted in (SOPA) Obama will have full control of killing any forums, blogs, you tube or any way these right wing terrorist spread their lies.

Hang in there this is just temporary and after the problem is cleaned up all will go back to normal as soon as the "problems" are removed but these right wing nuts have to be silenced who are spreading all of the lies. This is a good thing.