Last night I went to follow someone new on Twitter and discovered that my account had been... suspended! I read Twitter's help page on contesting a suspension and still could not figure out for the life of me what technical or other violations I'd committed.
Several of my friends on Twitter have had their accounts hacked, so I clicked on my feed to see if I might have fallen prey to the same issue. Well, apparently Twitter hides the feeds of users who are being investigated for spam, so I couldn't even see my last tweet (though I'm pretty sure it mentions a book I'm reading). Another writer I know had her account suspended after her website got hacked, so I checked that, too. Nada.
I emailed support begging them to restore my account and promising to be a better citizen of the Twittersphere (though in truth, I think I'm already a pretty good citizen). This morning, with just as much warning (meaning zilch), my account was mysteriously back to normal. There were no signs of a hacker, and Twitter didn't even bother to send me an automated email (Dear Twitter: I know you know how to send automated emails because I get several per day!).
I'm happy to have my account restored and I realize that Twitter is a free service (for now, at least), but I'm also a little miffed that they can suspend someone with zero warning and without even an automated courtesy email explaining why. (In retrospect, I'm guessing it was because I'd scheduled a few tweets using Tweetlater.com and maybe they mistook that for a spambot.) Sure, they're trying to protect other users from spam, but if a real person took 20 seconds to read my feed, they'd see that I'm a real person, too, and I'm actively engaged in the Twitter community.
Frustration aside, there is an important lesson in all of this. I had something similar happen to my Google documents account several months ago, and it prompted me to stop relying on Google docs for important files. Online apps are fun and easy-to-use, but they're not always reliable. They (Twitter, Google, etc.) can yank your account access if they suspect foulplay (or even sometimes just "because") and, of course, service is often spotty anyway. So it's best not to rely on Twitter as a communications tool or contact manager, as some people are starting to do.
Your turn! Have you had this happen to you? How long did it take to resolve?