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Twitter resolves issues with accounts locked by mistake

It was also seeing a delay in tweets showing up on timelines.

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Corinne Reichert Senior Writer
Corinne Reichert (she/her) grew up in Sydney, Australia and moved to California in 2019. She holds degrees in law and communications, and currently oversees the CNET breaking news desk for the West Coast. Corinne covers everything from phones, social media and security to movies, politics, 5G and pop culture. In her spare time, she watches soccer games, F1 races and Disney movies.
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Twitter reports it's accidentally locking accounts.

Angela Lang/CNET

Twitter  reported two problems for users early Wednesday afternoon, with a delay in tweets showing up on timelines as well as accounts being locked "by mistake."

"We're seeing a number of accounts that have been locked or limited by mistake and not because they tweeted about any particular topic," Twitter Support tweeted. "We're working to undo this and get those accounts back to normal."

Twitter said it was working to fix the issues right away, with both resolved within four hours. As of 4:08 p.m. PT, Twitter had fixed one of the issues: "Your Tweets should be making it onto your timeline...on time."

The accidental account-locking issue was then fixed by Twitter around 4:40 p.m., with the social media platform providing a new Help page for what to do if your account remains locked.

The accidental locking or limiting of accounts came amid the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, as Twitter seeks to crack down on false and misleading information spreading via the social network and is ramping up the removal of accounts and tweets that violate its rules.