Due to a bizarre error, the bird website temporarily prohibits people from tweeting the word “Memphis”. On Sunday, a number of Twitter users suddenly found their accounts closed for 12 hours, apparently just to say the word – me included.
What Twitter has against the second largest city in Tennessee, someone advises. Maybe they’re just not big Elvis fans? Who knows.
Several users have screenshots of the suspension warnings they received Sunday, claiming that the word that caused the problem was ‘Memphis’. Many discovered the mistake after sharing a photo of Dutch professional footballer Memphis Depay. the Independent reports. In an apparent reference to this, the official English account for the French football club Olympique Lyonnais tweeted a photo of Depay with the message “can we still talk about him?” and Twitter tagged. The basketball team, Memphis Grizzlies, in Tennessee, also apparently shouted out the mistake a tweet referring to “the m-word” on Sunday.
One user shared an alleged screenshot of a Twitter Support response calling the issue ‘an error in our system’, without further explanation, but the original tweet seems to have been removed as it is not in Twitter’s replies. Support does not appear.
‘It’s been fixed now, and you can say’ Memphis’ again. Sorry about that, ”reads the message.
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A Twitter spokesperson also gave Gizmodo the following statement: “The issue referred to was the result of an error and has since been resolved. ‘
However, if this is true, it does not seem to be the case for everyone. Twitter does not allow me to re-enter my account until I delete my “Memphis” tweet, and even then several features are still restricted. If I try to tweet or re-tweet something, a warning, pictured below, is noted that my account will remain mostly out of order for the next 12 hours. We contacted Twitter for further clarification on this.
Not that I’m complaining. A 12-hour break from this hell site sounds like a vacation.
Whatever the error, it might just affect us blue-checkless proles, like Twitter does not look like it flag my verified co-worker’s tweets containing the word. Pictures or image descriptions with the word “Memphis” it also does not seem like Twitter’s banhamer stumbles.
There is a certain irony in seeing the rapid suppression of Twitter over the word “Memphis” after years of struggling to rampant abuse and triviality on its platform. But this is Twitter for you: an online haven for literal Nazis but God forbid you tweet about the birthplace of rock ‘n roll.