Not a Tweet in Hell
This last week saw my twitter account @fibendall be suspended. My immediate reaction was one of disbelief and then I felt really a bit sick about it all wondering what I could have possibly done to be suspended. There was also that feeling of what people will think of me given my profile had been banned, denied, suspended by Twitter like a common spammer! 
The first task was to use every support link and form known to Twitter to raise a response. As the days ticked by I felt I was really stuffed. It was an odd feeling to see my routine disrupted. I am used to having Tweetdeck running in the background monitoring all sorts of topics and conversations. I am used first thing and last thing daily posting my interesting article links and suddenly it was no more.
I am starting to use Google Plus a lot more. It reminds of Twitter in the early days in terms of getting access to smart people and their thinking. It is less crowded and far easier to filter and manage contacts than Twitter. So I started to consider maybe abandoning Twitter completely and becoming a Google Plus chick exclusively, but still I had this nagging want to get back on to my Twitter community.
I actually set up a new account to cover myself, while I thought of a new strategy for Twitter, @fiibendall. As soon as I had, in seconds Twitter reinstated my account. The two actions were not related, just an ironic coincident. I immediately set about revoking all access to third party accounts, as my lovely @twitter support chap had told me this was the issue which led to my account being suspended, a third party application accessing my account. I changed my password.
After getting over the feeling of being violated! I THEN, spent all day receiving spam tweet followers and realised I had an autofollow to these people on my account. I spent most of yesterday Unfollowing people, I am sorry by the way, if I unfollowed more worthy people, than the spam & porn guys.
All in all it was exhausting and upsetting. I had no idea how being suspended would make me feel so awful emotionally, from feeling I had done wrong, to “what people would think” to relief, then feeling like I had been violated to exhausted trying to get to an equal status quo, that my account is resembling today.
The conclusion is that Twitter is far more part of my life, more akin to Facebook than I realised. Both are different channels for different use and people, but very much part of my life. And social networking is as much a part of my life as going to the supermarket, having coffee with colleagues or dining out with friends.
I don’t think thats because I am sad, I think it is a behaviour evolution – do you?
Interesting that you mention the third party apps – seeing as the point of OAuth and XAuth is that your password is never given to services you authorise, and you don’t have to give them your new one when you change it.
If you meant you gave out your login details to a service not using XAuth/OAuth, well then that’s a bit foolish. Twitter doesn’t endorse any app that doesn’t, which means that the ones that do are often fairly dodgy in purpose and practice.
I also notice that before the unfollowing you jumped up – you unfollowed 485 people on the 24th August before following 335 on the 25th, result in a net gain jump of new followers for yourself of 250+.
While Twitter are usually less zealous in cracking down on this type of “churn and burn” to build accounts – as I assume you know, the magic number not to cross is 1000 per day – analysis of your account shows this is a fairly regular occurrence, or maybe this was the automated actions of a dodgy third party app?
Just curious on your thoughts.
Really appreciate you insights. I wasn’t following a build followers strategy, as I have worked out I am pretty much engaged with a certain set of different folks for different reasons. None of which involve any kind of social media tactics. So building a follow list is not of any personal nor commercial interest to me.
I think I have been foolish in someway through a third app, which one I haven’t got a clue or how to be very honest with you, as all those I revoked on Twitter were pretty standard apps.
My account was suspended after I entered my password incorrectly three times in to Tweet Me.
Its good to know there are smart folks like you, I am going to be far more careful in future, I am continuing to, when I have time, to clear down my account. Today the mass crazy follows have stopped for now. I am starting to see the real benefits of Google Circles in this context now, having been an early skeptic of Google Plus.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Fi. Sorry you had to go through so much inconvenience, but maybe your story will be useful for others to prevent this sort of problem. I do think part of the dark side of the on-line revolution is that it’s not always easy to get good customer support from cloud-based services.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Gihan. I was very worried I would not get anywhere with Twitter support, as they seem to have a bad rep! I did use most forms on their site!
When they did responded they were very very good. That said I know that is not the case for a client of mine recently. But in my experience it was a big thank you.
Glad to connect to you
UPDATE – I LOVE TWITTER SUPPORT AND FELT IT WORTHY TO POST THEIR HELP AND RESPONSE TO ME EVEN AFTER I GOT BACK ONLINE.
Not everyone says they are good at customer service, but they have been great to me
##- Please do not write below this line -##
kryptops, Sep-07 01:55 pm (PDT):
You’re welcome! Have a great day.
Best,
kryptops
support.twitter.com
—————–
FiBendall, Sep-06 06:41 pm (PDT):
Thank you very much Kryptops
Great customer support
xxx
Fi Bendall
Director
Fi Bendall, Sep-06 06:40 pm (PDT):
Thank you very much Kryptops
Great customer support
xxx
Fi Bendall
Director
Bendalls Group
kryptops, Sep-06 06:02 pm (PDT):
Hello,
When you log in, please be sure to reset your password. If your password no longer works, you can request a new one here:
http://twitter.com/account/resend_password
It’s also extremely important that you take the following actions:
a. Use a password that you don’t use anywhere else and never use the former password on a compromised account. Create a new and difficult password unique to Twitter that consists of both letters and numbers.
b. Check the Applications tab at http://twitter.com/settings/applications and revoke the access privileges of any third party applications that you do not recognize.
c. Avoid providing your username and/or email and password to untrusted third-party sites, especially sites promising “more followers fast.”
d. Remove any updates that you did not post personally to your account.
e. Scan your computers for viruses and malware, especially if unauthorized tweets continue to be posted in your accounts even after you’ve changed the password.
You can also visit our help page for hacked or compromised accounts at:
http://support.twitter.com/entries/31796
Thanks!
kryptops
Fi Bendall, Sep-04 07:12 pm (PDT):
Dear Sir
I have done everything you said and keep getting random follows and auto follows – I can’t stop them. I keep trying to unfollow but there are loads of them
Password has been changed and also I revoked all apps as you said.
Can you suggest anything else
Fi