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We get a lot of requests for help here at EFF, with our tireless intake coordinator being the first point of contact for many. All too often, however, the help needed isn’t legal or technical. Instead, users just need an answer to a simple question: what does this company want me to do to get my account back?
People lose a lot when they lose their account. For example, being kicked off Amazon could mean losing access to your books, music, pictures, or anything else you have only licensed, not bought, from that company. But the loss can have serious financial consequences for people who rely on the major social media platforms for their livelihoods, the way video makers rely on YouTube or many artists rely on Facebook or Twitter for promotion.
And it’s even worse when you can’t figure out why your account was closed, much less how to get it restored. The deep flaws in the DMCA takedown process are well-documented, but at least the rules of a DMCA takedown are established and laid out in the law. Takedowns based on ill-defined company policies, not so much.
Over the summer, writer and meme king Chuck Tingle found his Twitter account suspended due to running afoul of Twitter’s ill-defined repeat infringer policy. That they have such a policy is not a problem in and of itself: to take advantage of the DMCA safe harbor, Twitter is required to have one. It’s not even a problem that the law doesn’t specify what the policy needs to look like—flexibility is vital for different services to do what makes the most sense for them. However, a company has to make a policy with an actual, tangible set of rules if they expect people to be able to follow it.
This is what Twitter says:
What happens if my account receives multiple copyright complaints?
If multiple copyright complaints are received Twitter may lock accounts or take other actions to warn repeat violators. These warnings may vary across Twitter’s services. Under appropriate circumstances we may suspend user accounts under our repea
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