Marco, Thank you for the excellent and thought provoking paper. I have been digging into the data and the story is somewhat complex. There are accounts from December 2017 that have the "from_user" showing as suspended, while the same user on the same week generated Tweets that remain live on Twitter today. I have also found live RTs where the "from_user" account is reported as "does not exist" and there are other permutations that seem to defy the logic of account suspensions and account deletions. I hand labeled 1,500 Q-likely Tweets from the December 2017 set as follows: Code, Count, Pct. Suspended Account, 711, 47.40% Deleted Tweet, 509, 33.93% Q Signals, 165, 11.00% No Sign of Q 115 7.67% I have documented this research in the first 7 of the 33 videos here, but I feel there are still many unanswered questions: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7543134 ~Stu Dr. Stuart ShulmanU.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach (#boycott #thebigsix) On Sun, Apr 4, 2021 at 10:29 AM Marco T Bastos <toledobastos@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Stu,
Are you checking the usernames or the user IDs?if you’re checking the usernames, chances are the live accounts were recreated after being removed (new user ID, same username). When Twitter removes an account the username is offered again in the pool of available handles, so banned users can create a new account and take over their previous username. Suspension is a bit different and AFAIK it doesn’t remove the username, but you may be coming across a single username that existed over several user IDs. You may find this piece helpful:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002764221989772
HTH, Marco
On Sun, 4 Apr 2021 at 14:48 <air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org> wrote:
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2021 12:05:45 -0400 From: Stuart Shulman <stuart.shulman@gmail.com> To: "air-l@listserv.aoir.org" <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Subject: [Air-L] A Question About Twitter Suspensions Message-ID: <CAJd4SndAuhOoiwVS1W7= oXjdCgBAzkSinLhPqVfMH3x7TNzq0w@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
When I try to display Tweets from December 2017 with clear QAnon signals (hashtags, buzzwords, other markers) many return the message "cannot display tweet - account is suspended," which makes sense given what we
are
living through. However, I then go search for some of those same suspended Twitter handles and find while some are indeed suspended, others are not suspended. Some usernames with hundreds of thousands of tweets that go back to 2011, and were spreading #QAnon, #TheStormIsHere, #WhoIsQ, and #FollowTheWhiteRabbit and related content between December 8-12, 2017, are alive and well on Twitter. I have not seen this before and I cannot explain it. My question is: Can a Twitter account show as suspended for certain content on the same day it is live with older and more recent content? Have others encountered this? Can an account suspension be revoked or else applied to only certain content? One example of many I ran into today: I have a record of a Q-centric Tweet from a suspended account but the account itself is in fact live and following current other live Q-related accounts that also are not suspended. It follows only 72 accounts (a dazzling collection of Q-related conspiracy experts) but has almost 5,000 heavily MAGA-leaning followers, which takes a certain Internet dexterity to achieve. Is there a good paper out there on the legal and procedural actions related to suspended, semi-suspended, or suspended but then restored Twitter users?
Dr. Stuart ShulmanU.S. Soccer Federation C-Licensed Coach
------------------------------
Subject: Digest Footer
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
------------------------------
End of Air-L Digest, Vol 201, Issue 5 *************************************
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/