Accounts of researchers suspended over tweets on Russia-Ukraine

As Russia began firing missiles and explosions against Ukraine on Thursday, the social media giant Twitter reportedly blocked several accounts of researchers sharing footage and other information about the Russian invasion.

The report mentioned Oliver Alexander, an analyst with open-source intelligence (OSINT), whose account was suspended for 24 hours was quoted by Telangana Today as saying, “I am back again after having been locked out twice in 24 hours. First time for a post debunking the ‘foiled sabotage/gas attack and the second time for a post debunking the Ukrainian attack into Russia,”

Another OSINT researcher Kyle Glen was also locked out of his account for 12 hours. Nick Waters, another analyst at the pioneering OSINT in his Twitter thread listed more account suspensions.

Twitter responded in a statement stating that action was taken against these accounts in error, ”We’re expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated access to a number of affected accounts. The claims that the errors were a coordinated bot campaign or the result of mass reporting is inaccurate,” they tweeted.