Twitter & Blaggergate
For those who don’t use Twitter, you’re either going to glaze over or completely ignore this post. Blaggergate has now been rumbling on since around the start of the month, and whilst many have written about this from several angles: breach of privacy; breach of Twitter TOS(terms of service); free speech and so the list goes on, it just shows to me how much social media has a grip on some of our lives.
Blaggergate initially exposed Paul Turner as a blogger trying to get preferential treatment in an underhand fashion. Whilst many on social media have called him worse; if you actually examine the email he sent, nowhere does it ask for a free meal. I take real exception from the likes of Jay Rayner getting involved in all this; a person who for nearly a decade was part of a 800+ person collective which virtually embodied the free meal culture, in the guise of ‘The World’s 50 Best’. He grew to eventually resented it, so much so, that he resigned his position over the very press junkets which added to the rise of such an award.
The reason I’m writing about this again, is that Twitter have said that if the owners of the suspended accounts promised to be nice and play by the rules, then they would have their accounts reinstated. To quote the Twitter email:
If you would like to request your account to be restored, please respond to this email and confirm that you’ve read and understood the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules).
We will then remove the reported Tweet and unsuspend the account.
Please note that future Twitter Rules violations may result in permanent account suspension. We appreciate your cooperation going forward.
I know that some of those in Twitter jail have replied to the above email multiple times, agreeing to the rules & showing remorse. But Twitter seem reluctant to reinstate the accounts. Hard to see why they would prolong this sort of punishment. What is absolutely farcical, is that, if you know where to look & you have enough time, you can obtain as much information on Paul Turner (or anybody else for that matter) as you want. Turner has done a quick job in trying to delete his presence on the net, but as you can now search for images, it’s even easier to find out more : Paul Turner, Google Image search . Worried Mr Turner?
So really Twitter, I don’t know what you’re trying to achieve. People won’t stop using your site in the near future over this, & if it was me I’d just open a new account & start again, actually circumnavigating your suspension altogether. All in all this just looks like a petulant playground tiff, with Twitter taking their ball home because they make the rules; but as long as well liked & followed people are banished; blaggergate will tarnish the Twittersphere.
