How would the internet change if social media platforms were legally required to prove their "active user" counts didn't include known bot farms?

A Final Appeal to X , And Why It Probably Won't Matter

Just submitted what will almost certainly be my last appeal to X (formerly Twitter) to restore my suspended account. I want to be transparent about the full story, because I think it matters beyond just my situation.

My account was Premium+, photo-ID verified, and had grown to nearly 10,000 followers. My profile made no secret of my focus: ethics and platform accountability. I wasn't hiding what I was doing or who I was.

What I believe happened and why it's bigger than me

I reported a Russian-operated website that openly sells X/Twitter accounts in bulk , thousands of them. This isn't a gray area. It's a direct violation of X's own Terms of Service, and almost certainly a violation of U.S. federal law. I reported it through X's own reporting tools, then filed formal complaints with the FTC and the FBI's IC3 portal.

At the request of federal authorities who have since contacted me, I'm not naming the site publicly. Making it widely known would inadvertently drive traffic and new clients to it , the opposite of what we want.

X's response to my reports? Complete silence. Not even a courtesy acknowledgment. Think about that for a moment: a verified, paying user reports what appears to be a large-scale criminal operation targeting X's own platform, and the company can't manage a single automated "thank you, we'll look into it." Any legitimate business , a bank, a retailer, even a mid-sized tech startup would at minimum acknowledge a report of criminal activity aimed at them. X's silence isn't just rude. It's a data point.

Here's my honest suspicion, and I think many of you share it

Early on, even Grok , X's own AI, acknowledged what many observers have long suspected: X has a financial incentive to let bot accounts flourish. Bots drive engagement numbers. Engagement numbers drive advertising revenue. A platform that quietly tolerates a thriving black market in fake accounts isn't just negligent , it may be complicit. I'm not stating that as a proven fact. I'm stating it as a reasonable hypothesis that deserves a serious federal investigation.

The pattern here is worth naming clearly: a user reports what looks like organized fraud, gets no response, and then gets suspended. Maybe that's coincidence. Maybe it isn't. I genuinely don't know. But the optics are terrible, and X's refusal to engage with any of it makes the innocent explanation harder to believe.

Where things stand now

I've made my appeal. If X restores my account, I'll continue doing exactly what I was doing , holding the platform to the same standards of transparency and integrity I expect from any institution that claims to value free speech. I'd genuinely prefer that outcome. My verified audience was there, and that work had momentum.

If X doesn't restore it, that tells you something too.

Either way, I'm not stopping. I'm actively urging federal, state, and international authorities to investigate the operation I reported , including any potential coordination or willful inaction on X's part. This is going to be a public campaign, and I intend to document it carefully.

Where to find me and follow this

I've already been building on healthier ground:

BlueSky come find me there
Mastodon decentralized, resilient, and growing fast
Reddit including r/Twitter**Exiles**, a community that's bigger every week for reasons that should surprise no one
Medium where I'll be writing longer, more detailed pieces on platform accountability as this develops

A final thought

This was never really about my account. It's about whether a platform that wraps itself in the language of free speech is actually willing to apply that principle honestly , even when accountability is pointed in its own direction. That's the test. It's not a hard test. But so far, X is failing it.

I'll update everyone on X's response , or, more likely, the continued absence of one.

Thank you to everyone who has followed this across platforms. The support and feedback genuinely matter, especially as we all figure out what a trustworthy social media landscape is even supposed to look like anymore.

Comments

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Acceptable-Bat-9577•3 months ago•1

Elon Musk has personally doxxed, attacked, and harassed his own users. Who is this appeal to? Fuhrer Elon already knows what’s going on. He supports it.

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