A Second Open Letter To Twitter From Sir Lefty Farr-Wright Regarding His Suspension

Dear Twitter,

Well, it’s now been 8 weeks since you suspended my account for alleged ‘Platform manipulation and spam’ and, despite several requests to you to provide at least a scintilla of that deeply old-fashioned and doubtless far-right commodity known as ‘evidence’ for your claim, you have come up with precisely nothing. Come to think, you haven’t actually replied to so much as a single one of my many appeals over the past 8 weeks. Not terribly impressive for a company that prides itself on its transparency [link], is it?

Although I doubt that you will read this message, just as I doubt that you bothered to read my previous Open Letter to you – even though I considerately provided you with a link to it in one of my many appeals which you have ignored – I thought I should inform my followers about a couple of developments that have occurred since my last Open Letter to you.

The first is that I have been in touch with your UK Managing Director, Dara Nasr. Unlike you Twitter ‘Support’ (was there ever a more inappropriate use of this word?) folks, he was good enough to reply to a few of my emails – although, sadly, he decided not to reply to my last one, which posed some important questions which are at the nub of this case, and which Twitter – and he – seem unable to answer. Here is a copy of them (from my email to Mr Nasr, dated 5th October), along with the concluding paragraph of my email:

1. Why has Twitter not responded to my appeals? After all, in the email from Twitter dated 18th August that I’ve reproduced above, Twitter said it “will respond as soon as possible”. Is nearly 7 weeks without a single (non-automated) reply from them to me acceptable to you, as Managing Director of Twitter UK?

2. Where is the evidence that I am guilty of ‘Platform Manipulation And Spam’? Surely, if Twitter could find any evidence for this, it should have been able to do this by now?

3. I refer again to my point about Twitter’s Rules And Policies. Surely, as a fair-minded man, you cannot claim in all seriousness that Twitter is “defending and respecting” the voice of a user like me?

It seems to me that a wrong has been done to me, maybe through a rogue algorithm. Being a reasonable kind of person, I do not seek to point the finger at anyone or apportion blame. But I do think that, in the absence of any evidence against me, it is high time for this wrong to be righted, and for my account to be restored. And if you, as Managing Director of Twitter UK, are not able to sort this issue out, then please direct me to the person who can, and I will take up this matter with them.

It seems extremely strange that a Managing Director of a huge company is seemingly unable – or is not prepared – to answer these perfectly straightforward questions, or to find a member of staff to answer on his behalf. These questions are, after all, hardly propositions from Wittgenstein – they go straight to the heart of what any company should be about: accountability and transparency, along with treating its customers fairly and even-handedly. Surely there is someone in Twitter who has the ability to answer these fundamental points?

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The second recent development is that Twitter has sent identical emails to three parody accounts that were suspended at the same time as mine, and for which I have considerable affection: @JarvisDupont, @MikeSjw and @GuyVerhoftwat.Here is a screenshot of the email:

This is a truly extraordinary claim. The idea that parody accounts are ‘misleading others on Twitter’ is absurd and – in the case of @MikeSjw and @GuyVerhoftwat – demonstrably false, as both made it absolutely clear in their bios that they were parody accounts. So why were they banned, yet (to give just one example) @BorisJohnson_MP isn’t? (Not that I think it should be banned – I’m not one for arbitrary bans of any accounts.)

My guess is that Twitter’s plan is to send me the same email in the next few days, so will just point out, for the avoidance of doubt, that my account clearly mentions that it is ‘sometimes parody’, as here (screenshot kindly provided by a long-term follower, @TimmyTour):

And, therefore, the question of ‘Misleading others’ cannot possibly arise here, any more than it does with any other account specifically labelled as ‘parody’. So please, Twitter, do not send me that email, as it is worse than ‘misleading’: it is blatantly false.

Here’s a better idea: either restore my account forthwith, or provide the real reason why you really want to ban it: which is because you don’t like it, because it mocks your woke, Far-left agenda – and because you can. Just admit that all your fine-sounding words about Twitter ‘respecting users’ freedom of expression’, and believing in ‘transparency’, are nothing more than that – words. A little bit of honesty – alien though it may be to such a deeply dishonest company as Twitter – would be welcome!