Twitter treated Sports Techie like Egypt – no X&0

Suspended Twitter Account
I luv xxx and ooo’s, both real Love and the Sports game-planning kind but what happened to me could happen to you.

@sportstechieNET has been suspended from Twitter since January 28, 2011 at approximately 10:30 PM PST.

My first thought was to our fellow Earthmates, the Egyptians, who must feel as violated right now as I do. This must be how Professional athletes feel as well when they get suspended from their Leagues with no due diligence and are eventually found to be in the right. Heard on Friday night that 300 percent of technical fouls called by NBA officials have been rescinded by the league since last year after later video review and interviews. That does nothing for the actual game outcome. Remember how the NFL came down hard with big fines for helmet-to-helmet hits only to backtrack later after reviewing video. Hang in their Egypt, Sports Techie and Chad! J/K Chad!!

There I was finishing up a Follow Friday (#ff) day which Klout.com says I have influence with here: (http://klout.com/SportsTechieNET) by responding to a nice “Thank You” tweet during the Australian Open (#AusOpen) from Wilson Tennis (WT) with a simple “You Are Welcome” answer, when suddenly and without any warnings, Sports Techie was locked out of Twitter. Talk about surprises. After over 27,500 successful tweets in one-years time they suspend me. What? There was no communication via Twitter as to why. I received no e-mail or customer service help. For the record, I was told zero reasons whatsoever as to why this crippling action occurred, it just happened. Same as in Egypt.

Twitter Growth
Twitter has about 200 million registered users who send out a whopping 110 million tweets per day according to Forbes here. Ever since Oprah put Twitter on the map they have sky-rocketed, however, there is not enough rapid growth today so they are now seeking International expansion.

One country that Twitter cannot grow right now in is Egypt who have silenced the Internet country-wide for it’s citizens to use. One day the Egyptians could tweet, Facebook or e-mail family, friends or work and the next second, zero access. Imagine for a second what you would feel like if President Obama one day hits the kill-switch. SNL can joke about it but it really is not that funny. Ask Egypt or Sports Techie. Although, I have to admit, SNL killed it with laughs last night having Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg do a cameo with Jesse Eisenberg and Andy Samberg about the movie, “The Social Network.”

Word on the Internet is that Twitter customer service is slow as molasses. It only makes sense. Imagine having to filter through 110 million tweets a day.

Facebook just shared that they have cut down spam by 95 percent with automated software. You no longer receive Farmville spam from Facebook. Well done FB and Mark. This is a company that seems to be able to handle it’s rapid growth in terms of customer service. Facebookers voiced displeasure about spam and bam, they dealt with it successfully, at least for now.

Suspended: What can you do?
I had read from tweeples about being tossed into Twitter “jail” aka ‘being suspended’ and the incredible hassle that goes with dealing with this tricky issue. On top of that, Twitter users are hacked everyday and of course Sports Techie understands this happens. So here I sat, suspended with no Twitter communication as to what happened or why.

This left me with no next step. I decided to be proactive and started to drill down on my own time to see what I could do. The first step said the Twitter support page was to change my password in case I was hacked. I did that and it did not fix the problem. Next, I had to fill out a semi-complicated form with information like who I was, my contact info and the time the problem occurred. Super I thought, now I am getting somewhere.

Well it turned out that all I got was an e-mail response from Twitter support explaining that I might have been suspended for violating their policies. Read them here: http://support.twitter.com/entries/68916

As far as I can tell, I am innocent. I have never sent out an automated tweet nor spammed anyone. I must be that I was hacked is what I am thinking. Yet, over 40 hours later still no word from Twitter and counting. I had to log onto Twitter support to see that I was indeed in their cue. How long I and others have to wait for a customer service respond when you get to this point is anyone’s guess?

Fortune 500
Twitter will stand behind that they are a Free service. I love Twitter and do appreciate this fact. After further reviewing their policies, they can simply pull the plug Matrix style on your user account because Twitter can. They can eliminate my 27,500 tweets for no reason. They can cancel everyones account, again for no reason. Finally, interesting that Twitter mysteriously caused private DM messages to vanish this past week. These DM’s can be read by any App that you allow to operate within your twitter account. Hmm.

My question for everyone to consider is this: how would a Fortune 500 company or top Sports or Technology business feel and react about having all their Twitter presence and content simply vanish, be blocked and ultimately shutdown? My thought is that this would simply never happen to the Fortune 500, NFL or Mashable. So is a small or medium-sized business owner at more risk? My opinion and hunch after this experience is, yes.

How is Twitter going to handle more customer service related issues as they focus on growing Internationally when they indeed have not mastered this critical component domestically? How will Twitter handle the Egyptian or Spanish languages when they need to focus on English customer service for their existing customers? This will offer Twitter tremendous customer service difficulties to have to overcome.

Lost weekend
How did this affect Sports Techie, LLC? Well for starters, it is hard to put a price tag on this suspension, however, emotionally I can say it hurts. I feel like I did something bad.

Realistically, it does effect my business in an extremely negative light that cannot be undone. Sports Techie is suspended on Twitter. What that means is my 2,000+ followers like MLB, MLB, Under Armour (UA) and a new fave, Team Coco (TC) do not know why. Followers and non-followers alike can think negative thoughts about this Sports Techie suspension which cannot be erased. Although, I suspect mind-erasing tech is nearer than we know. Any potential new follower cannot do that because I am suspended. Nor can Sports Techie follow anybody new which could be a potential Partner, Investor or friend.

In addition, the lost tweets I was planning to send out about this weekends 58th NHL All-Star and 15th X-Games can never be made up. Thus, my search engine rankings at Google and Bing plus other scores like Klout.com are effected too. Bottom line, being suspended tarnishes my business reputation and cannot be rescinded, even if I come to find that @sportstechieNET was hacked.

105.9mph

The 105.9 picture is what Boston Bruins Zdeno Chara shot in m.p.h. on a radar gun during the NHL Super-Skills by Honda in the XM “Fastest Shot” competition, a new world record blast by the Z-man! I also planned to share with twitter how Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers was mic’ed up during the two-and-a-half hour event at the RBC Center in Raleigh, N.C.. There was lots more sports and technology to tweet about today, including the actual NHL All-Star game but I cannot while suspended by Twitter.

What is next?
What is next? Who watches Twitter? Founder Jack Dorsey (@jack) perhaps? He seems very busy with Square.com at the moment to be that guy. Who knows. Both Egypt and Sports Techie need to stay the course and let it work itself out. Right? Ideally, I will get a real apology from Twitter for being suspended for no reason (even if I was hacked) but realistically that is not going to happen to a one-person business owner. They have over 110 million tweets to monitor today in addition to all the customer support queries that come in by the second. Let’s just hope Twitter does not suspend you and show your user account no X&O love.

🙁

Thanks for your reactions and comments below. Since I cannot, please tweet this Blog. See when I see ya, Sports Techie.

—> Monday, Jan. 31st update: I finally got a response from Twitter (see below) that says I was caught up in their spam filter (Jack, why don’t you call Mark at FB and ask them for help!). I was not hacked.

The moral of the story, Sports Techie and Egypt appreciate Twitter but now realize and so should you that it can be taken away in less than a second…

Via @Twitter support:
-Twitter has automated systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk. Unfortunately, it looks like your account got caught up in one of these spam groups by mistake.

I’ve restored your account; sorry for the inconvenience.

Please note that it may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal.

Carol
XOXO