Astronomer Mary McIntyre was locked out of her Twitter account after she shared a six second video of a meteor on the social media platform.
The video was flagged as “intimate content” by Twitter which left McIntyre locked out of her account for over three months.
The Brit was told by the platform that the “intimate content” was shared without the consent of the participant.
McIntyre could have deleted the tweet but explained that this would have meant admitting to violating the code of conduct.
“It’s just crazy,” McIntyre told the Today programme on Radio 4.
“I don’t really want it on my record that I’ve been sharing pornographic material when I haven’t.”
Despite her initial ban going from 12 hours to three months, her feed, including the meteor video, were still visible to the public.
The astronomer said she had exhausted all ways of communication with Twitter before Elon Musk took over.
“If I wasn’t getting a human response before [Musk took over], I think I’ve got zero probability of getting one now,” she said.
However on Thursday McIntyre was finally allowed back into her account.
McIntyre also felt that admitting to breaking the rules, when she hadn’t, would have an effect on her working with children in the future due to background checks.
“I miss the interaction. I feel a bit cut off from the astronomy world,” McIntyre said.
Tech commentator Kate Bevan said this example showed that Twitter’s artificial intelligence tools to carry out moderation tasks are limited.
“AI tools are OK for quick and dirty decisions, but it shows that content moderation at scale is really difficult — both for humans and for the AI tools that are supporting them,” she said.
By Dylan Bettencourt
Pictured above: The meteor shared by McIntyre
Image source: @Spicey_Spiney
