The 18-year-old student behind the hugely popular @girlposts Twitter account says she’s devastated about the social media site’s decision to suspend her account.
Twitter has in recent days shut down a number of popular accounts amid a crackdown on the trend of “tweetdecking”, which refers to the practice of creating fake popularity by carrying out mass retweets.
It follows the company’s notice in February 2018 about keeping Twitter safe and free from spam.
According to Niki Hellings, who is based in the South American country of Suriname, the @girlposts account had 9.8 million followers and was receiving 20 million likes and six million retweets a month.
The content she posted centred around fun, relatable memes and videos and she was in the midst of launching an eCommerce site, girlposts.net, which was tied to the brand she had built on Twitter. These plans have now been put on hold until she can determine the future of the account.
She said: “This is hugely disappointing for me. It has taken eight years of my life to build a following of nearly 10 million fans. I comply with Twitter’s rules and feel that this suspension is so unfair.
“I love Twitter, I love my fans on @girlposts, and I regularly get DMs saying @girlposts is their favourite part of Twitter.
“I’m so devastated about this as I feel like everything I have been working towards has been taken out from under me, and that this amazing community is now at risk of breaking apart – all while I have tried to follow Twitter’s rules and regulations.
“With each suspension, it gets harder and harder not knowing if the waiting period will be hours, days or weeks, or if I will get reinstated at all.”
Jack Irvine, chairman of Media House International and @girlposts representative, said: “There appears to be no system within Twitter to establish due process. From what I can see, Twitter is acting as an unregulated monopoly, arguably exclusively in its own interest.”