[quote DayBath]@Spero I've been following this but not commenting as I struggle to follow the legal details. Can you explain what the next steps will be now Twitter has reinstated you? Did they do this to avoid giving you the actual reason for your account being removed, or do they still have to answer that question if you proceed to court?[/quote]
I am afraid I am just as much in the dark as you are!
I will explain what I know.
On 12 and 14th Jan I got 12 hour suspensions for two innocuous comments. I didn't appeal, just deleted.
On 25th Jan I got permanently suspended for an utterly anodyne tweet so I appeal.
On 26th Jan Joanna Cherry tweeted in disgust that I had been banned for something so trivial. That prompted David Paisley to start tweeting that I had been banned for being an Anti Semite and a transphobe and you know how that worked out.
On 28th Jan Twitter Support emailed me to say they had made a mistake and my account had been restored. But it wasn't
On 31st Jan Twitter than emailed me to say I was suspended for attempting to evade permanent suspension. I replied to say this made no sense. I also instructed solicitors as it was clear that what Paisley and Blackman were saying was getting a lot of coverage.
On 8th Feb I complained to the Better Business Bureau, explaining that this was serious as I was instructing solicitors to consider going to court over defamation and I need to know what was going on with my account.
On 18th Feb Twitter sent a really aggressive email saying my account would not be restored, I was banned for 'multiple breaches of the rules' and I must not reply to this email or make any further appeals; they would not read anything I sent.
On 22nd Feb my solicitors wrote directly to the Twitter Public Policy officers to explain that they would need to apply for an order for disclosure of the reasons why I was suspended
On 23rd Feb around lunch time, without any communication to me or my solicitors, my Twitter account was restored.
So on that timeline it looks as if it was my solicitors letter than prompted the account to be restored, but I do not know for sure as Twitter have not had any further contact with me, or them.
I am baffled and frankly scared by the whole thing. It is clear to me at least that the reason for my suspension was ridiculous and nothing whatsoever to do with transphobia or Anti Semitism. Twitter apparently agreed... then over ruled itself and simply made up a bogus reason for continuing the suspension. I had done nothing to 'evade' suspension. I had not committed 'multiple breaches' of their terms of service.
While of course I am very glad to have my account back, given the absolutely horrible things people were claiming about me (including that I was banned for Holocaust Denial) I find the decisions taken by Twitter and the way they communicate unacceptably lacking in transparency, or even worse, indicating some deliberate attempt to remove me from the platform.
There is something very bad being allowed to happen and I do worry that we are all being distracted from this by some admittedly very urgent matters about women's rights. 'Big Tech' is more influential than many Governments. Yet they appear utterly unaccountable and seriously opaque in terms of their decision making. To be banned from social media would now be a serious problem for many people, given its ubiquity.
I hope it wasn't my solicitors who persuaded Twitter to restore my account. Because that simply underscores that only people with the money to pay lawyers can ever hope to be treated with anything approaching fairness. My solicitors bill is now in the region of £7K which is insane. And it also suggests that Twitter really didn't want to be ordered to provide any information about why they behaved in the way they did.
I think Joanna Cherry is right to raise this as a human rights issue and it does need careful scrutiny.