In recent months, popular social networks have come under pressure due to the roles they might have played during the latest US presidential election. Following that, Twitter cancelled Russia Today and Sputnik’s advertising accounts in unprecedented move. Most recently, the microblogging platform accidentally blocked one of New York Times’ verified account for almost 24 hours over the weekend.
The ban came after the account promoted an article about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s apology to indigenous people in the Canadian providence of Newfoundland and Labrador. After Twitter removed the ban, it apologized by saying that it was a human error.
The tweet in question promoted an article that said, “Left out of an apology a decade ago, native people in Newfoundland and Labrador get an apology from Justin Trudeau.”
Following the promotion, the account was banned for about 24 hours before it was restored. Afterwards, the company said, “After reviewing the account, it appears that one of our agents made an error. We have flagged this issue so that similar mistakes are not made going forward.”
Most recently, New York Times came under criticisms after publishing an article that profiled a Nazi sympathizer. However, at that time, the account wasn’t blocked from the platform.
If you have followed news related to Twitter in past, then you already know that this is far from the first time Twitter mistakenly blocked an account. Few weeks earlier, an employee deactivated US President Donald Trump’s account for a brief period of time.
