This article takes a look specifically at Twitter documents that detail its terms of use and potential user consequences for violation. Here are all the ways that you could get banned from Twitter.
1. Accessing Non-Public Areas
While the first place that you look might be Twitter’s Terms of Service, most of these are things that the average person isn’t likely to do on accident. These include things like deliberately hacking Twitter, or “accessing, tampering with, or using non-public areas of the Services.”
In short terms, “no accessing Twitter through backdoor channels meant for developers.” While it is possible to find a backdoor on accident, Twitter asks that in this event you report the issue to them so that they can fix it.
2. Doxxing
The above items involve using Twitter features and tools that you haven’t been given access to. However, Twitter also forbids using public features and tools in malicious ways.
In this category, Twitter’s Terms of Service specifically mention using the service to do things like spread viruses. It also includes “doxxing,” or, sharing personal identifying or location information of other people without their permission or consent.
As reported by The Washington Post, infamous Florida man George Zimmerman was removed from Twitter after doxxing an ex-girlfriend in 2015.
3. Posting Intimate Media
Twitter’s documents recognize a difference between “private” content and “sensitive” content. Twitter defines “sensitive media” as violent or adult content.
There are some places where this content cannot be shared at all, and some content may be so sensitive that it is not allowed anywhere on Twitter. However, accounts have more leniency in these matters for artistic or documentary purposes if they manually mark their accounts as sensitive.
If you are not sure about potentially sensitive content that you intend on post, or about sensitive content that you encountered on Twitter, you might want to read its complete Sensitive media policy.
There is also a distinction between “sensitive media” and “intimate media”, with “intimate media” being defined as photos of an adult nature that were taken or shared without the subject’s knowledge or consent. This is another bannable offense, per Twitter’s Non-consensual Nudity Policy.
4. Impersonation and Defamation
The Terms of Service also explicitly forbid sending messages that appear to be from Twitter. So, taking the Twitter logo and using it in your own emails is violating its terms and conditions.
Creating an account pretending to be another person is another misuse of Twitter’s public tools and features, which makes it a bannable violation. Because labeled parody and fan accounts are both allowed, read Twitter’s Impersonation policy to better understand this fine line.
Impersonation isn’t the only way to get kicked off for making someone look bad. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Courtney Love was suspended from Twitter as the result of a defamation lawsuit over her tweets. However, this isn’t a common occurrence and Twitter later allowed Love a new account.
5. Zero-Tolerance Violations
Twitter includes “hateful” content in its list of sensitive media, but “Hateful conduct” is also its own category of content that promotes violence against a person or group of people. “Violent threats” are one of only two actions that result in “immediate and permanent suspension” of an account.
Another of these rare cases is for accounts “whose primary purpose is to propagate and/or encourage engagement in” what Twitter identifies as coordinated harmful activity. Twitter updated this guide following the January 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capital that resulted in the ban of then-president Donald Trump.
Twitter is more forgiving when it comes to “wishing, hoping, or calling for serious harm.” Perhaps the earliest and certainly the best-known example of this came in October 2020 when Trump tested positive for Covid-19, resulting in a flood of tweets from less-than-sympathetic users. Twitter removed these posts but didn’t suspend violating accounts.
The only other situation with which Twitter expresses a zero-tolerance policy is child sexual exploitation. This includes written and computer-generated depictions and links to these depictions, even if for the purposes of education and awareness.
Report Offenders to Keep Twitter Safe
If you want to read these documents in their entirety or find more guidelines for other concerns, the best place to go is Twitter’s Help Center.
There are some situations in which Twitter’s staff will look for content or users to take down. However, for the most part, the posts and profiles that Twitter takes issue with are those that are reported by other users.
Hopefully, this article has helped you understand what actions you should avoid on Twitter yourself. If it has also educated you on what content you should feel safe reporting when you encounter it from other users, that’s all the better.
