Fellow Hubbers, I could use your help. My Twitter account just got suspended, why, I am not sure. If anyone out there uses Twitter and would like to see the return of DiligenTruthCkr and his tweeting, then I ask you to send out a link to this hub and help me out by retweeting the link to it all your friends, and by asking them to do the same.

There was a saying in South Africa that I heard as a kid: "Each one teach one." Basically everyone helps everyone. We are not islands, we are not untouchable, we are not more important than one another, and we should not be above asking for help either.

Here is what I wrote today, after discovering that my Twitter account had been suspended, and my following of around 500 had been deleted...

To whom it may concern,

ACCOUNT SUSPENSION

Please could you explain to me why my account has been suspended? I have put much effort into my tweet activity, and I believe that there is a significant number of people that find what I am tweeting to be worth reading. I think many more will follow in the course of time.

I am not impersonating anyone by writing under the pseudonym "Walk Miles". I am a writer, and Walk Miles is a pseudonym that I intend to continue to use for a very long time. (For what ought to be very obvious reasons, I don't want to use my legal name to post public posts - not only does familiarity breed contempt, but revealing one's full name so obviously out there and in the open can be risky. I have a family.)

I am disappointed that I have not been contacted by you with a letter of explanation as to why my account has been suspended. I have every intention of using Twitter as it should be used - to connect with others, and to rally some support for what I am saying. I thought Twitter was about that - connecting, and making a mark. It is a fabulous free way of finding support for your ideas, for networking and for promoting yourself and your product - without getting ripped off! You simply can't do that only through friends (no one has that many friends) - you have to actively follow others for them to be even momentarily exposed to the fact that you EXIST.

I had a re-read through your rules, (which I think that you yourselves have intimated are under periodic revision), and I find it hard to think that my innocuous, yet thought provoking tweets, could have led to my account being suspended. I certainly cannot be rightfully accused of "spamming".

I am beginning to feel that what seemed in so many ways to be an ultimate freedom - to touch others all around the world (as long as you were willing to reach out to them by following), might be just another "Big Brother is watching you" system of helping the already influential become more influential, and affording the already established even more opportunity to spout off. What is the point of following someone if they won't follow you in return? In a perfect world no one could be so important that they automatically had the right to have one person continually listening to them unless they were also willing at some point along the way to be prepared to reciprocate too. I thought that this was the MAGIC of Twitter - the fact that the "lowest" person on the totem pole could have an opportunity to influence the "chief," albeit only in some miniscule way.

I respectfully request that you re-instate my account and my following, unless you really believe that what I have been doing is completely untoward and unlawful, in which case I would ask that you clarify for me where I have gone wrong, (so that I don't repeat my wrongdoing, and lose all my work), forgive me (for whatever my transgression has been) and reinstate my account and my following out of goodwill and following the spirit of the Law.

What has made the Internet great is that it has been a place for freedom of speech to prevail. I sense that the freedom is steadily being lost. Don't let Twitter propagate the spirit of control. Instead be a part of the process of empowering others.

If my account was accidentally suspended, then please forgive me for "rattling on".

I look forward to your reply, confident that you will have "heard my heart" upon reading this.


Sincerely,

DiligenTruthCkr