Well, it’s been a few weeks since my Twitter account was suspended, and my account still has not been reactivated. I spent a couple of days after the suspension reading up on Twitter’s rules, and the more I learned the more convinced I became that I have absolutely not violated any of their rules. Nevertheless, my account remains “permanently suspended” — a penalty that was recently meted out to Kanye West for his antisemitic remarks. What amazing company to keep…

I sent another reply to the Twitter appeal-receipt email, hoping to just give a bit of a prod to the process. (Which was a bit ridiculous, I know, because I’m sure they handle hundreds, if not thousands of them every day.) Within minutes of hitting send, I received a response from Twitter:

In order to assist all incoming requests as best we can, we regularly close cases that haven’t had any interactions or responses in a certain period of time.

We aren’t able to reopen this recent case, but we’d like to make sure you get the help you need. If you’re still experiencing a problem, please create a new case, and this will enable us to continue to assist you.

But… Twitter support is the one who hadn’t interacted or responded! I found this frustrating but also quite amusing. After submitting an appeal online, one gets a message stating that we should check out junk mailbox for notifications from Twitter. Are they checking their junk mailbox for appeal requests?

Interestingly, the lack of Twitter access and the inability to share links to new reviews and other content has had no real impact on the website’s traffic. Unique visitors are still within the normal range, with no noticeable drop-off. Maybe this is just a sign that the website is well-enough established that people come to CR via other means than Twitter. (Could it be that we have been mislead about the importance of social media to drive traffic…?)

In the meantime, I’ve been experimenting with a new Instagram account. Using this platform is obviously not the same as Twitter (which really was very easy to use for reviews, etc.), and I do miss certain features of Twitter that allowed for more spontaneous conversation and posts. However, I’m also still learning how I can use Instagram, and also figuring out how I want to use it.

More updates as and when I have them, I guess. Until then, I shall continue enjoying my far-less-noisy sans-Twitter existence.