Twitter Vs Kangana Ranaut Shines A Spotlight On Online Public Behaviour

Twitter has permanently suspended Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut's account from the microblogging platform for "repeated violations of Twitter Rules specifically Hateful Conduct policy and Abusive Behaviour policy".

Kangana, who is known for her occasional rants on the platform, had urged Prime Minister Modi to "tame" West Bengal's chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and even demanded President's rule in the state minutes before her account was suspended.

Kangana Ranaut / Instagram

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"We have been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on behaviour that has the potential to lead to offline harm. We enforce the Twitter Rules judiciously and impartially for everyone on our service," the spokesperson added.

My colleague has asked a few pointed questions in his report which you may want to check out. But do stick around for those Twitter rules and policies that govern the online space on the platform.

Spamming, compromised accounts, or abusive tweets

Most of the accounts suspended by Twitter are spams, or just plain fake. These types of accounts introduce security risks and are against Twitter Rules, which include tweets that incite violence, harassment and other similar types of behaviour that discourage people from expressing themselves.

Twitter may also suspend an account if it is suspected to have been hacked or compromised until it can be secured and restored to the account owner. This is done to reduce potentially malicious activity caused by the compromise.

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If an account has been reported for engaging in abusive behavior, like sending threats to others or impersonating other accounts, Twitter may suspend it temporarily or, in some cases, permanently. Twitter considers abusive behaviour as ¡°an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else¡¯s voice¡±.

Twitter¡¯s Hateful Conduct Policy prevents users from promoting violence against or directly attacking or threatening other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. And this also covers preventing use of hateful imagery in profile, display name or bio.

Twitter has zero tolerance towards any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation as well as against non-consensual sharing of intimate photos/ videos of someone. The suspension of account in both the cases is immediate and permanent.

How can Twitter users unsuspend their account

If you log in and see prompts that ask you to provide your phone number or confirm your email address, follow the instructions to get your account unsuspended.

Twitter may temporarily disable an account in response to reports of spam or abusive behaviour. For example, you may be prevented from Tweeting from your account for a specific period of time or you may be asked to verify certain information about yourself before proceeding.

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If you are logged in to your account and see a message that your account has been locked for security purposes, this means that Twitter has detected suspicious behaviour and it appears as though your account may have been compromised. Reset your password to unlock your account.

Twitter may also limit your account if it appears to have exhibited aggressive following or aggressive engagements. In that case, users can either continue to use Twitter in a limited state--restricted to sending Direct Messages to their followers--or verify their phone number or email address for complete access.

And if none of the above options work, users can always file an appeal with Twitter to check if the social media platform mistakenly restricted their account. Users need to first log in to their account and open a new browser tab to file an appeal.

A lesson in responsible online behaviour

While allegations of big tech cancel culture and online censorship will continue, they may very well be unfounded in this matter related of Twitter suspending Kangana Ranaut's account. Ultimately, we must realise that social media -- like Facebook, Twitter -- are new global public squares enabled by technology, and by its very nature public discourse is governed by certain rules and regulations or else chaos will reign supreme.

With the rise of cyberbullying, trolling, spamming and other online nuisances, we must aim towards productive online expressions that doesn't cross the line -- whatever that line may be, in this case it's Twitter's community guidelines.

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It may not be perfect and subscribing to every polarising view, but it's all we have right now and it has shown it can enable and bring all of us together in our moments of personal crises and urgent needs -- if you've followed the messages of oxygen / blood plasma / hospital bed requests over Twitter over the last few weeks like I have. That should be our aim, when we engage in public online discourse. What do you think?