Aaron Eikenberry, Blog of

After getting 4 new accounts suspended permanently, I was still trying to figure out what was different than my app at http://zingd.org and my ‘disapproval’ function for http://slurtracker.com. They both do almost the same thing. They grab a public tweet, and anyone can reply to it via my account. In zingd, it was generally more mean-spirited, ‘you suck!’ and ‘get a haircut!’-type stuff. With slurTracker, their tweet was available to ‘disapprove’ of because they had used a slur of some kind.

I mimicked, as close as I could, the functionality of Zingd for slurTracker and still, after 7 or so tweets, my account would be suspended. 

So, instead of using a new account I made for slurTracker, I thought, what if I just use the credentials for Zingd? Would I have the same problem, and right away, I did not. I sent out disapprovals like crazy, no suspensions, and everything seemed to be working very well. The only difference was, it was sending these tweets from @zingd instead of @slurtracker (or @slurtrackerapp, @slurtracking, etc.).

So, I thought, this must be a new policy that only affects accounts that are brand new. Zingd has been around for a year and has sent out over a thousand zings to randoms. 

I wanted people to look at this, so I posted the URL for slurTracker on Reddit under the WTF subReddit. I immediately started to get lots and lots of hits on the site, and people weren’t just looking at it, they were using the disapproval button and it was working great. 

The first snag was, they used it so much that we hit the status-update limit for an hour. After that hour, people were updating again by the swarms. People were commenting, I got a couple emails from users, and I went to bed thinking it was working well.

This morning I woke up and checked in, and people had made over 500 tweets at people disapproving of their slur-tweet since I had went to bed, and sadly, my account was suspended, no reason, and it seems to be permanent. 

So, now both of my apps can’t post new statuses. Zingd.org and slurTracker.com both can pull in tweets, but not make replies to people. 

I wish I could get a human on the line to help me with these Twitter woes, but all I can get are automated responses.

Immediately after the beta launch of http://slurtracker.com last week, the @slurtracker  Twitter account was suspended for unknown reasons. I assumed it was this glaring bug in my code, and I applied for an appeal of the suspension but never got one reply from Twitter support. I created @slurtrackerapp after fixing the bug, thinking my worries were over, and that was working well for 7 whole tweets, until that account has been suspended.

I think the rule that is holding me up is this one:

If you send large numbers of unsolicited @replies or mentions in an attempt to spam a service or link;

The problem seems to be that when someone clicks on ‘Disapprove’ on my site, it sends the person they are disapproving of a standardized message: ‘@foulmouthedperson I saw your tweet on slurtracker.com and I totally disapprove!’

My site http://zingd.org was never suspended though, and I was sending A LOT of these replies to people: ‘@someRandom you suck!!! #zingd’. I’ve still yet to hear from Twitter why exactly they are shutting this down. I’m very curious. 

The big question is, is it because I’m calling them out on allowing such awful language? I don’t think it should be NOT allowed, not at all-say what you want!, but I think I have equal right to pointing it out and calling people on it! But, it’s probably not that, I can only assume they think Slur Tracker is some sort of advertising machine, which it is not. It’s a machine that tracks slurs on a map with cute graphics and snappy retorts.