Several Twitter accounts complained on Sunday that their accounts were temporary banned after tweeting the word "Memphis." Tweeting the word appeared to result in hundreds of accounts being automatically suspended for no particular reason as such. The problem expectedly stemmed from the name of Dutch midfielder Memphis Depay.
Several users shared online screenshots of their account banned, saying that the word that caused problems was "Memphis". The Twitter Support account later said in a tweet on Sunday evening that the issue has since been fixed and blamed the issue on a bug. However, it didn't give any further explanation on how the problem happened.
Unexpected Problem
According to a report in The Independent, the problem started suddenly on Sunday, with whoever typing the word "Memphis" being immediately banned by Twitter. So much so that it even caught the attention of players at Olympique Lyonnais, the French football club.
"Rough day, huh @CityOfMemphis?" Olympique Lyonnais wrote on its Twitter account.
"Hey, @Twitter - can we talk about him yet?" it further wrote while sharing a picture of Dutch midfielder Memphis Depay. The tweet alluded to people having trouble writing the name of the player in a tweet without getting blocked.
Many believe that the ban took place because Depay has trademarked his name so that nobody else could use it. But even if that were the case, there is no indication if Twitter doesn't allows people to use the trademarked words on its platform.
However, Memphis Grizzlies managed to make the most of this temporary glitch that occurred due to a bug. Memphis Grizzlies posted: "when bots flood our comments with 'say the m word'" along with a video of a block from player Brandon Clarke.
Users Stunned
While many users were left puzzled, several agitated users started screenshots of their account being blocked. Also, many started also changing their name to "Memphis" to prove a point.
However, Twitter was quick to address the problem and the later users were able to tweet using the word "Memphis." Twitter said that the problem was due to a bug but didn't give further explanation.
Many believe that the word may have been mistakenly flagged by Twitter's automated systems that are intended to spot problematic and unlawful content. Users were told their post had violated the Twitter rules, which means the automated system somehow spotted the word "Memphis" to be either offensive and banned language or illegal.
