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Twitter permanently freezes Japanese man’s account after he makes death threat…against mosquito

12 Comments
By Casey Baseel, SoraNews24

As online communication and social media increasingly becomes a part of mainstream society, so too has the way organizations handle cyber-bullying and violent discourse. What long ago might have been seen as boisterous yet harmless chest-thumping between shut-in technophiles is now often taken as seriously as threats communicated through physical mail, television, o any other sort of media.

Twitter, for example, scans users’ tweets for hateful, potentially harmful language and takes countermeasures when it feels like the messages constitute an infringement upon someone’s personal safety. It’s a system that Japanese Twitter user @DaydreamMatcha recently ran afoul of, as the Twitter account he was using until just a few days ago, @nemuismywife, was flagged and frozen by the social networking platform after it deemed that he’d been Twitter to broadcast death threats

As is often the case when social media users get reprimanded, @DaydreamMatcha claims that Twitter’s judgment is unfair. His argument doesn’t claim his tweet was permissible because of freedom of speech or because his comments were intended to be satire, though, but because his unabashed killing intent was directed at a mosquito.

Mosquitos are an ever-present nuisance in Japan during the humid summer months. Even indoors, you often can’t entirely avoid them, and on August 20 @DaydreamMatcha, back when he could still use his @nemuismywife account, was bitten by a mosquito in several places as he was watching TV. His rage at the insect prompted him to send out a tweet which read “Bastard! Where do you get off biting my all over while I’m just trying to relax and watch TV? Die! (Actully you’re already dead),” which he paired with an attachment of the corpse of the mosquito he had swatted or sprayed in exacting his revenge.

Not long after, he received the following notice from Twitter:

"Thank you for using Twitter.

Your account has been frozen because it was used to send messages containing threats. Tweets containing threats are not allowed under our terms of service. This account cannot be reactivated.

Thank you for your understanding."

The fact that the tweet that caused all the commotion included a photo of a dead insect suggests that the @nemuismywife account was flagged not by a human administrator, but by an automated program that searches for certain words and phrases. While Twitter’s notification (which has the sound of a standardized message sent out whenever an account is suspended) says the decision is final and irreversible, hopefully the online attention the incident is getting through @DaydreamMatcha sharing his tail will be enough to convince one of the humans at Twitter to let the @nemuismywife account off the hook.

Source: Hachima Kiko

Read more stories from SoraNews24.

-- Disney’s Japanese Twitter account calls anniversary of Nagasaki bombing “Nothing Special Day”

-- Japanese Twitter artist’s cute anime girl rendition of a mosquito is so accurate it hurts

-- Japanese women’s magazine takes the average of 500 desirable guys, comes up with one strange list

© SoraNews24

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

12 Comments
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Talk about overkill....

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Hmmm.... but in defense of Twitter, they probably use an algorithm that searches for key words and just found too many with this guy's account. If they employed humans to filter through all of the accounts and tweets it would be just too much to examine. Let the guy call Twitter and explain and they'll probably re-open the account. To me... this is not news... its news hype.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

Why would you send a death threat to a mosquito via the Internet anyways? Unless mosquitos have Wi-Fi wherever they return home to, go get to clapping or buy one of those zapper rackets.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

we live in the age of big brother and globalisation, so expect this more and more and more.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Just kill the damn mosquito. No need to tweet about it. I mean, you're not Trump.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

Twitter is not government - they're a private enterprise - so if ya wanna use their services, ya have to deal with their systems

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Very amusing.  Are the moderators of Twitter members of PETA?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Seems back now.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@lostrune. twitter, Facebook, google inc may not officially be govt, but they are having too much power over our lives. they have deep connections with govt and spy agencies, as well as sell all your data to the highest bidder. just look at the new google attempt to read your emotions so as to provide what they feel is the information you want, or the one that analysis's your keystrokes to target you for advertising. too much.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Twitter can be a cesspool sometimes and threatening users or anyone else is disgraceful.

That said; this sounds a bit over zealous.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Turned out that it was caught by a bot/AI and that the decision can't be reversed.

Hence, why I don't do SNS.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@lostrune. twitter, Facebook, google inc may not officially be govt, but they are having too much power over our lives. they have deep connections with govt and spy agencies, as well as sell all your data to the highest bidder. just look at the new google attempt to read your emotions so as to provide what they feel is the information you want, or the one that analysis's your keystrokes to target you for advertising. too much.

Selling to the highest bidder and advertising is what private enterprises do. If ya have a problem with that, you're not forced to use their services - so then use other companies' services.

If ya think they have too deep connections with the government, again don't use their services - you're not forced to use their services. You have the choice whether to use them or not.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

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