Since inception, social media has been changing the way people behave, buy, and engage with other people. To keep platforms and people as safe as possible, platforms have implemented policies that if broken could result in account suspension or deletion. So what happens when your social media or Twitter account is suspended? We met with three HR Influencers to find out what they did when this happened to them.
The History of Social Media
Since 1997, social media and blogging platforms have increased in popularity. Over the last two decades, we’ve seen the rise of platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, and even the fall of platforms including the original platform, Six Degrees, and others like Myspace and Snapchat.
As social media platforms adapt to trends and adjustments in human behavior and expectations, the platforms have found the need to begin regulating not just the content, but also the users. That’s when social media platforms started to suspend accounts.
This account suspension or ban has even impacted people in the HR and HR tech community, including our friends JoAnn Corley–Schwarzkopf, William Tincup, and Craig Kaye. I sat down with them to learn more about the experience they had when their Twitter account was suspended.
HR Influencers Who Had Their Twitter Accounts Suspended
JoAnn Corley-Schwarzkopf is a globally recognized HR & Management Expert specializing in integrating business and people acumen through human behavior science. She’s an acclaimed LinkedIn Learning course author and has been quoted or featured in NBC News, Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review, & more. She recently launched Manage Global, the virtual arm of her consulting firm which offers live, interactive professional development and is also the creator of the groundbreaking blueprint approach to leadership and management development – The Effective Executive’s Blueprint for Smart Management.
Craig Kaye is a Learning Professional with over a decade of experience working with everyone from vulnerable adults to commercial executives. Craig first become involved with HR and L&D when he became a manager in his early 20s and wished to share what he regularly comes across in his own development whether it be challenges or successes. Craig is based in the UK in an area called St. Helens near Liverpool.
William Tincup is the President of RecruitingDaily. At the intersection of HR and technology, he writes, speaks, advises, consults, invests, and teaches. He’s written over 200 HR articles, spoken at over 150 HR & recruiting conferences and conducted over 1,000 HR podcasts.
Interviews
Disclaimer: I posed the bolded questions to each of our Influencers/ interviewees. The responses below are their responses, which may include language or responses some find unprofessional. As an interviewer, my goal is to reflect others as they are and want to be shown, and not make adjustments to their responses to fit my own brand or mold. If you have any questions about this, feel free to let me know.
How long have you been an HR Influencer?
Craig: I have worked in HR, Management, Learning & Development, and Organizational Development for over a decade. This started when I was first successful in an internal application for a Team Leader Role. This was a massive learning curve, I accepted this role despite being relatively new into post following completing my degree in Criminal Psychology. Upon taking this role the desire to help, develop and support teams has also motivated me!
JoAnn: I think I was on my first list in 2013 – Top 30 HR Experts to follow on Twitter.
William: Yeah. I don’t think of myself in any of those ways. Moreover, people that think of themselves that way are psychopaths, drunks or stupid as fuck. I’m William Tincup, I do what I do when I want to do it and how I want to do it. Occasionally I have a hot take on something in our industry, occasionally I challenge the status quo, and yeah, occasionally I piss people off. My truth is mine. Mine to share and express as I feel. That’s it. Love me or hate me, I’m still William Tincup.
How much of an impact has social media had on your business?
Craig: It’s been massive for my own career. I gained my current role as an L&D Advisor for a massive company through the raised profile through Twitter. Members of my Personal Learning Network highlighted the role, which minutes later resulted in a phone call to better understand responsibilities and the company. Soon after my successful interview I had a new role, solely because of the brilliant people online!
JoAnn: Massive significance – it’s what took me global – my first influencer request was writing for the Daily Telegraph UK as a North American Career-HR Coach – that lead came through Twitter. I was found by LinkedIn to become a course author through YouTube. I became an IBM Influencer through the HR community on Twitter
William: I know this will sound a bit self-involved but I don’t really think about other people when I do something social. Social is a version of life that matters way too much for some folks. I do shit on social that makes me laugh or challenges me in some particular way. My Instagram account is a wonderful (my words ego) example of this; I make sarcastic art via IG. If I like it, then I post it. I want all my social accounts to be a tiny window into my dark heart.
When you first noticed your Twitter account was suspended, what was your first thought?
Craig: Initially I thought ‘oh what a pain’ and tried accessing my account. It highlighted that it was suspended and needed my initial email address details. My account was set up over 11 years ago with an account whereby for security reasons Microsoft deleted all .co.uk addresses and asked to switch over. I explained this to Twitter who said it still didn’t qualify for myself to regain my handle. I then asked Twitter to delete my account as it contains personal data, they said they would after a photo of my passport. I queried why this same process can’t give me back my handle. I had no response after 4 emails. I then sent my photo and it was instantly deleted – FFS.
JoAnn: What was my first thought: holy shit! There is specific revenue that I can contribute to social media (thousands of dollars) – Amazon book sales, audio sales from a variety of platforms, my LinkedIn Learning courses, specialty influencer webinars I’ve been paid to do. And now I’m partnering with a company in Dubai and England to create courses for them…which will translated into multiple languages as my LinkedIn courses have been.
William: That Workday sucks huge donkey dicks. My second thought was how weak of them to try and silence a critic. It didn’t silence me, it reinvigorated me. They completely fucked up, they should have just ignored me. I might have lost interest in kicking their ass every single day. Now I get real joy out of exposing how fucked up they are.
What steps should Influencers take if their Twitter account is suspended?
Craig: There seems to be no way around this due to Twitter’s own administration. It is not personalised, inorganic and buzzword led.
JoAnn: Follow the directives given – there was a page that walked me through a set of instructions to reactive my account. It had been suspended.
William: Don’t panic. Stay calm and work the official reinstatement process. Also, search LinkedIn to see if you know anyone there. Message them and ask for advice. Don’t waste your time blaming them, algorithms or anything else. Just work your process. The absolute worst thing you can do IMHO is overreact. Turns out, if your Facebook account gets shut down, life will continue. Social is not life, it’s a spoke in a much larger wheel.
What was your experience with the customer care teams that helped to remedy your account?
Craig: Terrible. Not personalised, you can see the mechanical responses and the lack of response following detailed input was so frustrating. I have now realised that I was lazy regarding my security and as a result I have now had to set up a new account and try to once again build my people based profile which had near 2,000 contacts previously.
JoAnn: I didn’t speak with anyone directly. I followed the required protocol and my account was restored fairly quickly and fully functioning with an hour or so.
William: They were extremely nice, very understanding and willing to review anything regarding my account. I emailed with them almost daily while they were researching the deactivation. You know, with the volume of complaints they receive from legitimate bad actors it’s kind of overwhelming to understand how they manage it all. Honestly, I was met with a wonderful CS team and experience. I believe that to be true at all social outlets. Or at least I want to believe that it’s true.
Are there any ways people can prevent social media account suspensions?
Craig Kaye: Best advice, keep your email up to date and add a mobile number.
JoAnn: Honestly, I don’t know because I don’t know precisely why it happened. My only guess would be I might have been using some some software that was violating a Twitter rule that was the trigger…. lots of changes about automation have occurred in the last 6 months.
William: No. Well technically yes, don’t do anything on any of your social accounts. Nothing equals no service lost. But what’s the fun in that. Be unapologetically you and let the cards fall as they may.
What would you have done if your account had been deleted permanently?
Craig: It has been, there was a loop in play which meant I couldn’t move forward with starting again being my only outcome. It feels strange seeing myself access a different handle, I’ve added all the contacts I could remember alongside the obvious Liverpool Football Club Accounts 🙂 – It has been a really frustrating experience!
JoAnn: First, I would have cried… no joke here, because I’ve built quite a following over a number of years. Then I would have reached out to my main community HR to ask for help to rebuild.
William: I would have moved the fuck on with my life. Life existed before social; life exists with social as we know it and life will continue to go on.
What other advice do you have?
Craig: As I highlighted earlier – add a current mobile number. My security issues would have had a way out which resulted in access being maintained. A combination of my laziness, terrible customer services and a frustrating password reset procedure meant my account was deleted. Hopefully I manage to find all the contacts I built on my previous handle.
JoAnn: This was a reminder to be equally present and successful on a variety of platforms. Even though I’m a LinkedIn Author and advertise on Facebook, Twitter is still more fav. platform.
William: Don’t take yourself too seriously and, for sure, don’t take social too seriously. Google August Ames. She was a porn actress. She made, IMHO, a benign comment via Twitter about researching the men that she was paid to have sex with. She was concerned about men that crossed over and acted in gay porn movies. She suggested that research was healthy, normal and that every female porn actress should do some level of research. It seems completely reasonable enough, right? She was bullied relentlessly and committed suicide. That’s a harsh example of taking yourself, your opinions, other people’s opinions and social media in general too fucking seriously. Death. Dying over something that happens with people you don’t know over Twitter is such a waste of time, money, energy and in this case, a life was destroyed. That’s fucked up.
Where can people find you online?
Craig: I’m back on Twitter under the handle @ThatCraigKaye – I’m on Instagram, WordPress and LinkedIn under @TheCraigKaye and I’m certainly not on Facebook. For reasons behind this, watch The Great Hack on Netflix which explores misinformation, data breaches and political influence across the globe …… and breathe 🙂
JoAnn: Find me: www.manageglobal.solutions Let me know if have any follow up questions. 😉
William: Google William Tincup. If you can’t find me, you should consider becoming a mime. Seriously.
A huge thank you to Craig, JoAnn, and Tincup for sharing their thoughts on this topic. Please find them, follow them, and hire them!
Like this post? Hate it? Either way, let me know in the comments below. If you don’t already, follow me on Twitter and connect on LinkedIn at @socialmicole.
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