You may be wondering why our UK Media Changes feed on X is currently showing as suspended, so are we...
We
received an email around lunchtime, informing us that the account had
been "reported" and had been suspended for violating X's "rules against
authenticity". The reason seems spurious, we are a group of media
enthusiasts, running various media news and development feeds on
Bluesky, Mastodon and (formerly) X. Linking to articles on trusted
industry websites and on The Guardian website. The Guardian has a long
history of covering media news stories, our readers may remember their
MediaGuardian phase several years ago. We also link to our blogs
covering service and technical changes on various broadcasting
platforms.
Here's how "Grok" summarised the X feed prior to the suspension:
@UKMediaChanges
maintains
a focused feed on evolving dynamics in the UK media sector, aggregating
news on broadcasting shifts, TV rights deals, regulatory scrutiny, and
telecom infrastructure updates. As part of the broader MCUK network, it
coordinates with sister accounts like UK Media Watch to spotlight
political influences on media, while cross-posting content to Bluesky
and Mastodon for wider reach. Occasional behind-the-scenes notes reveal
collaborative efforts among admins to ensure timely coverage amid
high-profile events like BBC board resignations.
There
is no merit to the suspension and we are concerned that there is some
sort of action being taken by unknown individuals, making fake reports,
in an attempt to close the feeds down.
Last
week our, completely legal, IPTV feed, covering streaming services from
Freely TV, Sky and Virgin TV, was suspended for "violating the X Rules,
specifically our Counterfeit Policy". Again claiming the account had
been "reported". The UK IPTV Changes feed had not on any occasion linked
to or supplied counterfeit goods. It is a news feed not a sales
account. The only "goods" mentioned were various reports of new Freely
devices due to hit the market from Netgem, the BBC and Humax. All legal
devices, approved and promoted by Freely TV, which is owned and operated
by UK broadcasters. In any event, the X rules specifically state:
"Content which provides news, information, or commentary about goods or
services is not a violation of this counterfeit goods policy.".
On
appeal the UK IPTV Changes feed was restored without any changes or
requests to delete any posts. Obviously suspended based on erroneous
reports which X hadn't bothered to check.
In
an attempt to prevent any future confusing reports and suspensions,
Media Changes UK group admin's decided that the UK IPTV Changes feeds
should be rebranded as UK Streaming TV Changes (UKSTVC). Hoping that
would be an end of the matter.
The
UK IPTV Changes suspension email had a reference number from X's Legal
Support team and the appeal was handled by email, probably reviewed by
an actual person. Unfortunately, that's not the case with "authenticity"
suspensions, which appears to be the black hole of suspensions, with
appeals reviewed and, almost always, denied by bots. There are many
reports on Reddit of similar incidents. So, we don't get a reference for
an email appeal and the chances of this being reviewed by an actual
person are slim. Nevertheless, an appeal has been filed.
This
is a very poor approach by X to arbitrarily suspend an account with six
year history and with no rule infringements during those six years.
Media
Changes UK group admins have taken the decision to immediately cease
posting on our feeds on the X platform. All remaining feeds on X have
been made private and can only be read by existing followers. This is
not a guarantee that these feeds will not also be targetted, so read the
latest post carefully and decide what you want to do.
Unfortunately,
as a group of volunteers, we simply don't have the time or the
resources to keep appealing arbitrary suspensions. Especially so with an
organisation that no longer has the staff to actually review the
appeals.
Our
feeds will continue on Bluesky and Mastodon. Some of the feeds may take
longer than others to resume posting. As the legacy feed, X has
traditionally been posted first and our source feed needs adapting to
reflect the new reality. The legacy feed isn't automated in any way but
it expects a signal from the feed editor that the post on X has been
actioned before it suggests content for the other platforms. We have
been in the process of tweaking this since the suspension of the UK IPTV
Changes feed, so work is already at an advanced stage.