Twitter Announces Easier Appeal Process for Banned Accounts

In this age of Donald Trump, cyberbullying and the so-called “filter bubble," it’s easy to get into a heated argument on social media. And with an estimated 321 million monthly users scrolling down their screens on Twitter, it’s no surprise that accidental or even malicious reporting of your Twitter accounts can occur.

For social media marketers, the consequent suspension of accounts can cause real problems – and if your social media account generates revenue, it could become a critical issue quite quickly. Earlier this month, though, there was some good news – Twitter announced an easier appeal route.

The social networking site said it has added a way for people to appeal a suspension from within the app, adding that it is now able to get back to people who appeal a suspension faster than before.

The New Appeal Process

It’s now possible to appeal against any reported tweets in the Twitter app within the new 280-character tweet limit. If for whatever reason one of your organization’s tweets has been reported, you’ll first be given the option to delete it – and you can simply tap within the app to do so.

If you choose not to do this, however, you’ll no longer have to rely on filling out an online form. You’ll instead be able to send your appeal from within the app, and there’ll be a text box in which you can outline your reasons.

In theory, this is likely to give you the chance to address the problem of suspended tweets well before your manager or client notes the problem – meaning that normal services can resume quickly and easily.

Twitter’s Words

According to Twitter, the change has already had a significant impact when it comes to reporting and appealing errors that are made on the microblogging platform. And the San Francisco-based Twitter claimed that it has already sped up the appeal process by 60%.  

“We move quickly to enforce our rules, but sometimes we don’t have the full context and can make mistakes," the company tweeted. "To fix that, we added a way for people to appeal our decision in the app and have been able to get back to people 60% faster than before."

For a busy social media marketer hit by an unfair ban, this can clearly represent a big time saving – and means you can spend your time creating quality content rather than dealing with problems like these.

Time is a precious resource for many marketers: with 200 billion Twitter timeline views per year, a lot of work is required to build an audience in such a crowded field. And with Twitter earning $909 million of advertising revenue per quarter towards the end of last year, many social media marketers may be worried that suspended tweets could affect their plentiful and well-honed advertising funnels.

With these changes, however, negative reports and marketing mistakes can be avoided.

The context: Why the Appeals Change Matters

In order to understand exactly why this is such a big deal, it’s well worth looking at the history of Twitter’s relationship with its users on this issue.

For several years, there have been complaints in both directions. Some argue that Twitter isn’t fast enough when it comes to dealing with malicious and abusive users. Yet others have claimed that Twitter moves too fast, and can end up blocking users who don’t need to be blocked.

From a marketing point of view, several companies have responded to Twitter's perceived failures by choosing to take a radical social media marketing approach and leave the site altogether. Recently, for example, beauty brand Lush announced on Instagram that it was leaving not just Twitter but other sites like Instagram too. With top-down policy changes like this occurring, it's possible that companies will begin to feel comfortable again on the microblogging platform.

As millions of users post on Twitter and scroll down their timelines, the social networking company has had to implement some sort of content control policy. And in the face of complaints in both directions, this compromise will make it easier to combat bad content while looking out for legitimate users.

For social media marketers worried about having the accounts they manage flagged incorrectly, then, this news is likely to be welcomed.