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Controversial South African-based tweeter Man’s Not Barry Roux has had his X (formally Twitter) account suspended.
Well known for his explosive tweets, @AdvBarryRoux’s account boasted more than 2.4 million followers before being suspended.
The satirical tweeter has been at the forefront of shaking up South Africa’s political and socio-economic landscape with critical but humorous commentary. Infamous for “dropping files” where he tweets exclusive information only kept by central intelligence organisations such as the Hawks, @AdvBarryRoux has been seen as an insider with vast access to critical information. This has seen his followers base soar.
The anonymous @AdvBarryRoux has since created a new profile called (@AdvoBarryRoux_). But he has a significantly lower following.
“Account still suspended please in the meantime follow this one for better content,” he posted.
@AdvoBarryRoux_ said he was trying to get his old account back.
On it website, X which is now owned by South African born billionaire Elon Musk says X’s the purpose of the platform is to serve the public conversation.
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“Violence, harassment and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely.”
X says common reasons for suspensions include spam, the account’s security being at risk and abusive tweets or behaviour. It sys accounts can be unsuspended through the filing of an appeal.
Musk made sweeping changes to the Twitter platform with the biggest being the name change to X. He had already named Twitter’s parent company the X Corporation, and previously said his takeover of the social media giant was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app” — a reference to the X.com company he founded in 1999, a later version of which went on to become payments giant PayPal.
He finalised a deal to buy the company for about $44 billion on October 27.
Founded in 2006, Twitter took its name from the sound of birds chattering, and it has used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15 (about R270), according to the design website Creative Bloq.
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