Twitter’s automatic guillotine takes another victim. At the expense of this tour is the economist Michele Boldrin, who saw his account suspended in the morning. Who puts forward certain hypotheses on a decision that appears to be the result of a quid pro quo. “Specifically, in the last two weeks I have made 3 or 4 tweets on the lies of Alex Bazzaro, member of the League,” explains Boldrin via email. Then, he remarks, he exchanged tweets with the journalist Luca Telese, with a focus “on the Kurdish question and on whom to give up arms”. A heated debate, but which has probably triggered reports against the teacher’s profile.
Once again, the social media ax hits the mark. On this tour he is the economics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, formerly among the animators of Noise from Amerika and Fare – per Fermare il Declino, as well as popularizer of Free Beyond. At this point the hint is that it is the result of a systematic mass reporting operation. To summarize the story is Boldrin himself, who this morning noticed the suspension of his Twitter profile. “There was no explanation for what happened,” he admits. “The app automatically takes you to a page that gives you three possible reasons (Spam, impersonation, targeted harassment) but doesn’t reveal any specific reasons,” he notes. But the economics professor is sure that he has neither spammed nor impersonated other subjects nor harassed third parties. “The option to argue and appeal is offered, which I did via Twitter,” he explains. “I simply replied that you have blocked me saying that I do targeted harassment. Since I do not do it while, in addition to proposing things, I also heavily criticize the lies and manipulations that come from any political force and from any media that spread lies or similar, you should tell me who I would personally molest in an unjustified way “, says Boldrin.
There are two hypotheses, according to the teacher. The first in an exchange against the Lega Bazzaro parliamentarian. And then the one with Telese. “I went hard but, to be honest, he went hard too. There was a back and forth for 20 minutes, maybe 10 tweets, ”explains Boldrin with reference to the dispute with Telese. It is possible, as often happened in the past, that a series of reports from the economist’s profile has started. Which then resulted in the suspension of the account. Contacted by La Stampa, Twitter has not yet replied on the incident. But the feeling is that the short circuit was clear.
In the face of serial displays of hatred against one or more people, Twitter has often been very lax. Especially on the front of fake profiles or bots. Not surprisingly, one of the conditions necessary for the acquisition of the social network by the owner of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, is the real count of fake accounts on the platform. That would be more than expected. In a communication to the Security and Exchange Commission (Sec, the US Consob), Musk attached the letter sent on June 6 to Twitter, explaining that the company “refused to provide the information repeatedly requested” from May 9 “to facilitate the his evaluation on the platform’s spam or fake accounts “. Twitter’s latest offer to “offer details on the methodologies it uses is equivalent to a refusal” to comply with Musk’s request, the letter read. A problem which, as the case of Boldrin also demonstrates, is very topical.