Twitter Jail: My Memoirs

Sometimes life throws you an opportunity. A quick search on the net suggests that whilst many celebrities have written about their time inside bricks and bars prison, no-one's had the foresight to document their time in something more modern.

I've been thrown in Twitter Jail, with all privileges withdrawn pending appeal. In physical jail, you can still watch the other inmates, but in Twitter jail if you have the temerity to appeal they blind you until the appeal is concluded.

This is a tongue-in-cheek record of my time in Twittertraz - with some very strong language within

 

What'd I do?

The obvious place to start is the... crime itself. Obviously, like everyone else in jail, I'm innocent, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It all happened underneath this video

The video is of a Portugese woman explaining she'd been here for 20 years working, and underneath a, stereotypically callous, Brexiter said

I mean, here's a woman who's complaining her life is being  - literally - torn apart and she's not even being given a voice in the process. That's being done to her by a Home Office who have repeatedly shown just how hostile they are to non-brits. Windrush was not the first, and not the last instance. Hell, the Home Office's advert has just been banned for misleading EU citizens on how to apply to stay in the UK.

This is being done to her because a bunch of angry, primarily old and primarily white men decided they'd rather continue to believe a pack of lies than to be decent rational human beings.

So, like any good upstanding citizen, I felt the need to correct him of his mistake. I should add, I had seen some of his dismissive replies in the thread first.

 

My Defence

Ok, so it may seem a bit harsh on the face of it, but these are unusual times. Those, primarily, old white men voted in a Prime minister who's now decided to close Parliament to stop democratic processes from interfering with his Brexit plans. 

Just 0.14% of the country got to vote in the Tory leadership contest, 99.86% of us didn't even get to have a say. The result of that is we've ended up with a PM who's taken an action that's only befitting of a dictator - Boris Johnson is a nasty little dictator wannabe, trying to set a precedent that could be used by more effective dictator wannabe's to force through whatever agenda it is they'll have in mind.

On the say of just 90,000 people, the country has a PM who previously conspired to have a journalist beaten up, was sacked from the Times for fabricating quotes, was sacked for lying about an affair (leading to an abortion, if that matters to you), lied more while at the Telegraph (leading to them using the defense that no-one should take Boris's claims seriously), and is generally a disingenuous floppy haired lying twat.

What Johnson is doing is an assault on the democratic process that has defined this country for centuries. If you can back what he's doing and try to claim to be trying to improve/defend this country, then there are no words for you, so "cunt" will have to do - especially as 4 letters fits into a tweet better

No-Deal was always a bad idea, but we're now approaching it having not done nearly sufficient planning, whilst threatening to abandon commitments we have made (that'll really engender trust with future trading partners right...). It's impact is going to be hardest on those least well-off. The rich can afford to stockpile both medicines and food, as well as to pay over the odds to replenish supplies. The rich also don't have to worry in quite the same way about employment prospects when businesses are failing.

The risk of damage, and who it'll affect should be fairly clear. So, you've got to be feckless to be backing it, and you've got to be cunt to back it knowing it's going to severely harm other people.

So, M'lud twitter I suggest that the only thing I've actually done is offend some people by calling a cunt a cunt, and then having a bunch of complete snowflakes report me.

 

The Appeal

Twitter originally suspended me for 12 hours on the following grounds

Which doesn't really seem to apply, but I'm a big boy, so I was willing to take it on the chin and do my 12 hours.

However, you don't get to just leave Twittertraz, you go on parole and they insist on you providing your mobile phone number as part of the unlocking process.

Now, I don't just give my mobile number out, because companies cannot be trusted with phone numbers. Social Media companies even less so.

So, I decided to lodge an appeal with them instead, on the following grounds:

  • Brexiters are not a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or suffering from a serious disease. You don't choose to be any of the above, you can choose not to be a cunt brexiter.
  • A mobile number is not required to provide the service, and I do not consent to them having or processing it, so insisting upon it to unlock my account is a likely GDPR breach (yeah, Twitter, I'm still in the EU until at least 31 Oct, much to the annoyance of those country-wrecking fucknuggets).

Of course, I fully expect Twitter to argue that Brexiters are in fact a serious disease, at which point I will have to concede the point and withdraw that part of my case. Although, I don't know that you can discriminate against or victimise the disease itself...

In response to me submitting my appeal they've locked me out of my account while they review the appeal. See, unlike in meatspace jail, your time spent inside pending appeal doesn't count towards your sentence, 21st century justice my friend.

 

Conclusion

Presumably it's not the use of language itself that Twitter decided to act on, as it's not like I don't have form for pointing things like this out

Note: I do, however, offer my deepest, most sincere apologies to those affected by the orthographic screw up in that tweet, it hurts me seeing that "your" too.

So, for now, I'm doing my bird (see what I did there...), and enjoying a break from the toxic cess-pit that Twitter has become.


Appeal Fails

Not entirely unexpectedly, my appeal failed. Twitter don't let you appeal an appeal either, nor do they tell you why they rejected your appeal - so I can only assume they have indeed concluded that Populists are a serious disease.

Still not being happy with giving Twitter my number, I picked up a cheap PAYG SIM and used that instead - the blindfold has been removed and I can see the Twittersphere again! But, if I dare try and interact, it extends my sentence - the counter resets to 12 hours. Welcome to Dictwitter land.

Worse though, whilst flicking through my account settings, I've found something Twitter have done that surely, surely, must fall foul of article 3 of the Human Rights Act. They've.... they've... listed Andrea fucking Leadsom as being an interest. She's not the only nasty surprise either

Piers Morgan.... noooooo. They're not wrong on the Pie though.

The list does raise some questions about the effectiveness of their advertising product, there's quite a lot in there that's not going to get a click from me

Release

I've done my time man, all 12 hours of it + extensions, and now I'm to be released.

I did consider trying to dig out with my toothbrush overnight, but, managed to resist the temptation.

I have, of course, been warned that further transgressions might lead to a longer sentence or even account suspension. Sadly Twitter still haven't told me exactly how they feel that rule applied to those tweets