Due to a bizarre bug, the bird site temporarily bans people from tweeting the word ‘Memphis’. A number of Twitter users came on Sunday suddenly found their accounts locked out for 12 hours, apparently just because they had said the word – myself included.
What Twitter has against Tennessee’s second-largest city is a mystery. Maybe they just aren’t big Elvis fansWho knows.
Several users have screenshots of it suspension warnings they received Sunday claiming that the word causing the problem was ‘Memphis’. Many discovered the bug after sharing a photo of Dutch professional footballer Memphis Depay, the independent reports. In clear reference to this, the official English account for the French football club Olympique Lyonnais tweeted a photo van Depay along with the message “can we talk about him yet?” and tagged Twitter. The Tennessee-based basketball team the Memphis Grizzlies also seemed to be shouting the bug in a tweet referring to “the m-word” on Sunday.
One user shared an alleged screenshot of a Twitter support response in which he called the issue “a bug in our system” without further explanation, but it appears that the original tweet was removed as it does not appear in Twitter’s replies- support.
“This has now been resolved 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 referenced was the result of a bug and has since been resolved.”
If that’s true, however, it doesn’t seem to be the case for everyone. Twitter wouldn’t let me access my account until I deleted my ‘Memphis’ tweet and even then several features are still limited. When I try to tweet or retweet something, you get a notification, as pictured below, that my account will be largely down for the next 12 hours. We’ve contacted Twitter for more information on this.
Not that I’m complaining, actually. A 12 hour break from this hell site sounds like a vacation.
Whatever this bug is, it can only affect our blue-checkless proles, such as Twitter does not seem to mark my verified colleague’s tweets with the word. Pictures or descriptions of pictures Twitter’s ban hammer doesn’t seem to stumble with the word “Memphis” either.
There is a certain irony in seeing Twitter’s quick crackdown on the word ‘Memphis’ after years of struggling for the rampant abuse and intolerance on its platform. But that’s Twitter for you: an online haven for you literally Nazis but god forbid you tweet about the birthplace of rock ‘n roll.