Twitter Suspension

an open response letter by Ray Kooyenga

Ray Kooyenga
Sep 1, 2018 · 3 min read

Twitter Support,

I’ve been suspended for violating Twitter TOS regarding self harm.

I believe a roving automated bot filter picked this tweet up and flagged it erring on the side of caution picking up certain preselected keywords, so it could be elevated to a more accurate, intelligent, rational, and expensive process such as human review.

Though this simple technology has clearly made an error in my case, as any intelligent rational human would likely agree, Twitter is to be commended for its proactive efforts to protect users from dangerous discourse that seeks to harm them mentally or physically.

I linked to a quora.com question/answer.

https://www.quora.com/How-you-can-commit-suicide-without-a-trace

The question posed is how might one "commit suicide without a trace".

The answer linked to concludes as follows:

“No matter how creative and complete a solution you find, there is a fundamental flaw worth considering, which is this: your absence from your community, so-called loved ones, colleagues, etc. leaves its own distinctive sort of trace. Like an empty chair in an otherwise crowded room, it tends to stands out. In this way, there is always a trace.

Do not kill yourself.”

These answers though often unconventional, do work and related answers like this one:

receive responses from suicidal people like this:

By silencing me and limiting my exposure, it impedes my proven ability to save lives in need. Something investors and advertisers alike may appreciate.

None of us want twitter to lose users and customers to preventable tragedies. That’s my only intention: sharing answers that work, to prevent suicide and do my small part to improve peoples outlook in dark times through humor, reason, and rare perspective.

I’m confident a human editor in reading these quora articles would deem them healthy, positive, and constructive.

For my part I will delete the post after starting the countdown in that order, as I’m unable to before hand. For your part given this is a mistake, and given my words and actions have a proven history of literally saving lives and improving peoples mental, physical, spiritual, even financial condition, you have every incentive to release any and all limitations placed on my account without further delay.

Thank you,

Ray Kooyenga

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