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Twitter Users Can Now Appeal Account Suspensions, Under New Standards

Account suspensions will be judged using a new set of criteria.

Alix Langone Former Reporter
Alix is a former CNET Money staff writer. She also previously reported on retirement and investing for Money.com and was a staff writer at Time magazine. Her work has also appeared in various publications, such as Fortune, InStyle and Travel + Leisure, and she worked in social media and digital production at NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt and NY1. She graduated from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and Villanova University. When not checking Twitter, Alix likes to hike, play tennis and watch her neighbors' dogs. Now based in Los Angeles, Alix doesn't miss the New York City subway one bit.
Alix Langone
Twitter logo on a smartphone in front of Donald Trump's Twitter profile

Twitter permanently suspended former President Donald Trump in January 2021, but Elon Musk reversed the ban late last year. 

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If you're a Twitter user, you can now appeal an account suspension and your request will be judged by a new set of criteria for reinstatement, Twitter said on Wednesday.

In a tweet thread posted by @TwitterSafety, the company said it would reserve suspensions for "severe or ongoing, repeat violations of our policies" before banning an account. Rather than immediately suspending an account, it will now take less forceful actions such as "limiting the reach of policy-violating tweets or asking you to remove tweets" before you're allowed to keep tweeting. Behavior that is considered a severe violation includes illegal content, inciting violence, privacy violations, and targeted harassment of users, among other actions. 

Twitter already started reinstating previously suspended accounts late last year, permitting controversial accounts like those of former President Donald Trump and comedian Kathy Griffin back onto the platform. The company said it'll continue to reinstate banned accounts that meet its new criteria over the next 30 days.

Twitter already had a feature allowing users to appeal suspensions and violations, but new management said previous policies for banning accounts were too harsh and took disproportionate disciplinary action for breaking Twitter rules.

A comment from the Twitter Safety account suggested that a number of appeals have been made under the new policy. "We appreciate your patience as we work through a high volume of these requests," the account posted earlier Wednesday. 

Twitter didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.