A 165-Year-Old Iowa Newspaper Had Their Twitter Account Banned

From the rollout of Twitter Blue to the end of free two-factor authentication, there have been some wonky things happening with Twitter over the last several months. Things got especially strange for a newspaper in Mason City, IA last week too.

The Globe Gazette's Twitter's account was inexplicably banned last week for unexplained reasons. The news director, Lisa Grouette, of the 165-year-old paper posted the news on her own Twitter account to rally support around the Gazette.

When Grouette filed an appeal with Twitter, she got a message saying that the account was permanently banned. Once again, no specific reason was given.

The newspaper Twitter account mainly posts regional Iowa news stories as well as Associated Press stories for national news.

The good news is The Globe Gazette's Twitter account is back up and running after having its privileges revoked. But that alone wasn't the end of things.  For a brief time after the account was restored, Grouette noted that the paper had lost all of its few-thousand followers. Those have since been reinstated as well.

The Globe Gazette's suspension got the attention of lawmakers such as Chuck Grasserly, who called on Twitter to reverse the decision, as well as Ashley Hinson.

As things stand now, The Globe Gazette is back on Twitter, all of its 5,800+ followers restored. As the paper noted on Twitter, it took three days, three appeals, attention from lawmakers, and many, many retweets and vocal support from people all over the country.

Read the full story on The Des Moines Register.