Twitter Suspends Accounts of Torrent Sites
Written by Ernesto on May 02, 2010Twitter has suspended the accounts of at least two torrent sites and removed all of their followers. No reason for the suspension has been given other than that the sites in question “abused” Twitter’s service. Both sites were updating their accounts with newly published torrents daily.
The popular micro-blogging service Twitter has had a love/hate relationship with BitTorrent during the first few months of the year.
Early February Twitter attributed a phishing attack to an unnamed torrent site script, blaming a torrent site developer for intentionally installing backdoors into his code. The backdoor was then allegedly used to steal passwords and hijack Twitter accounts.
A few weeks later Twitter itself called in the help of BitTorrent to optimize the site’s backend. With BitTorrent, Twitter is planning to distribute files faster and more efficiently, saving time and precious resources and improving the scalability of its operation.
It is great to see that Twitter recognizes the value of BitTorrent since many BitTorrent sites also appreciate and use Twitter’s service to communicate with followers. Last week, however, two torrent sites were suspended by Twitter without prior notice.
YourBitTorrent and TorrentSurf both ‘lost’ their accounts and followers. The reason cited by Twitter was ‘abuse’ but no further details were given. The owner of yourBitTorrent told TorrentFreak that he contacted Twitter over a week ago to find out more, but he hasn’t heard back from them yet.
Although it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the sites have been suspended for copyright related issues, another plausible explanation is that the mass tweets of links to torrent files were seen as a violation of Twitter’s terms of service.
“If your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates,” say Twitter, your account could be suspended for spamming. Since both sites were doing just this, this mass posting might have triggered the suspension. If this is indeed the case, other accounts including nearly all popular news feeds are at risk as well.
It seems unlikely that simply being torrent-related makes an account a target for suspension. The account of @EZTV which also lists thousands of torrents, and the highly resourceful @isoHunt and @TorrentFreak are still up and running.
Previously: BREIN Wants Usenet Provider To Start Filtering
Next: BitSnoop Returns With Fake Torrent Checker
69 Responses
Twitter sucks.
Twitter is only for those that don’t have lives lol f4gs
twatter more like. full of attention seeking whores
Never understood twitter
I really don’t understand why not use RSS instead… like really, do you need Twitter for anything other than you know… “microblogging”?!
Why people use that silly service for anything is already hard enough for me to rationalize, it’s like a sadomasochist fetish of beeing constrained to 140 characters or some sort of justification for URL reduction websites existence who knows!
But let’s go with the most convincing motive I can find, convenience… Twitter IS NOT more convenient than RSS for ANYONE for said purpose!
I swear… some stuff on the interwebz just don’t make the slightest sense… I feel this place was better when only raging nerds used to hang around, “mainstream” always crap everything it touches.
Twitter is a waste of time, not to mention bandwidth, and the energy it takes to run the site.
identi.ca FTW!
Ignorant fools.
Get a decent client like TweetDeck
http://www.twitter.com/DARKFiB3R
twitter my space and all that bollocks got to http://twatter.com/
Go to hell twitter
People named Noko to.
omg since I don’t use twitter I must start using bigoted names and tought words to slam it.
Who cares? How is it hurting you by existing?
@711
Within my timeline of twitter I learn more of the world I live in as just simple RSS, since I dont follow the NYT, or the Globe. But people I follow do and tell me the important articles. That makes following news far easyer and less timeconsuming.
i dont get it..
i mean what’s the logic behind posting urls to twitter?
what’s the problem RSS ? that’s for it
Who cares? It’s twitter. If you want to violate your personal privacy, use FB. If you want to post links and articles, use RSS.
twatter more like. full of attention seeking whores
I see Twitter as a kind of fashionable net gadget, nothing more. If you want to keep people informed just make a blog. Some blog services allow followers while they have neither the 140 char limit nor restrict posting links.
Having the RSS feeds of blogs is no different than following some1 on Twitter.
Ppl waste too much time in such services… No offense meant for the ones that have a Twitter acc…
I agree that Twitter’s service was never meant for links to torrents. That’s definitely a job for RSS.
However, that’s not the lesson to take home. Internet companies like Twitter are FORCED to REFUSE SERVICE because they are in danger of being blamed for the actions of their users. It’s all in the great trend of the entertainment companies suing service providers to censor their users, because they can’t be bothered to sue individuals.
If the entertainment companies get their way, all technology since the inception of the internet will be banned, and we’ll be buying little disks for all eternity, which we won’t even own because it’s their “intellectual property”.
The internet companies NEED TO FIGHT BACK for their own good, as well as ours.
Well. If that yousuckatmakingnamesfortorrent sites account was suspended, so what! It was spammy or whatever.
I’m going to make like 100 accounts with rss feeds of torrent sites. No fear people. They shut down some, more pop up. Also back up all of your twitter followers/list/etc since it could happen to anyone. Also maybe post a note “backup account”, extra redundancy (at least 3 times backed up on the web) + ofsite somewhere
RESIST #1984
Twitter sucks.I think I blog about my day,and how gay I am….Please…..
famous people is it for a way to express there opinion,which is not to bad,The media always takes things out of proportion.At the end of the day.GET a LIFE!!
sounds to me like twitter wants to use torrent when it suits, then stop using it when it doesn’t, ie after their problems have been sorted out for them. the entertainment industry will be doing the same thing soon. atm torremt is the biggest pain in their arse. as soon as they have control of the internet, torrent will be the poodles privates!! see if i am right!!
sounds to me like twitter wants to use torrent when it suits, then stop using it when it doesn’t, ie after their problems have been sorted out for them. the entertainment industry will be doing the same thing soon. atm torrent is the biggest pain in their arse. as soon as they have control of the internet, torrent will be the poodles privates!! see if i am right!!
How did I know that people would start flaming Twitter as soon as I started reading the article? This happens a lot here. Why don’t you guys make your own minds instead of letting TF do it for you?
I can’t really blame Twitter. Although linking isn’t illegal in most places, Twitter can’t afford to get mixed up in this sort of thing, so they covered their own backs. It shouldn’t have to happen, but it does and that’s the reality of it.
Long Live The underground movement :)
Twitter???
What in the world is “twitter”???
What is that?
attention seeking whores twatter face book my space all shit rubbish
@27
“Twitter???
What in the world is “twitter”???
What is that?”
I was going to ask that!
Anyway – what is Twitter?
I have never seen the point of it and to be truthful I have never looked at it, when I hear so called celebs (newsreaders mainly) say “follow us on twitter” I think -
For fucks sake why? Get a life and try TPB
Better than twitter and facebook where torrent links are allowed and cencorship free
http://joindiaspora.com/project.html
http://www.peerscape.org/
twitter sucks.
@25 Sendaii
Actually, it’s not totally unfair or unproductive to blame Twitter.
Instead of taking it on the chin and standing up to the companies that are forcing them to ban their own users, they use censorship (preemptively!) even though that hands the companies in question a carte blanche to wipe out even more of their user base in the future. It’s rude to both their customers and their shareholders.
When a company acts this way, people have every right to express their displeasure. Most importantly, if the feeling spreads “virally” to other parts of the internet, the company will HAVE to notice — that’s why the power of crowd mentality should never be underestimated.
@24:
you are correct..
as for tweets and status updates? meh..
i have no opinion due to it not concerning me and/or not being interesting…
long live torrents and long live net neutrality!
and yes, i know both are not long for this world *sob*
twitter.. the refuge of the modern day, self proclaimed tech savvy lemming (not actually tech savvy)
Its a plain and simple, stupid serivce; I really couldn’t care less that they suspended someone or other’s account.
Oh the horror that they lost their followers. lmfao.
@bt_skid is also still up and running and I mostly post links to torrent files there, that said its only like 2-5 links a week depends on the tv schedule.
Twiter probably caved to the bullies.
It is more than time to take care of this problem once and for all.
So, TF, what do we do ? Go into outrage mode and start raising hell or we wait for more info ?
I’m surprised it took so long for them to do this tbh.. Twitter is on a knife edge atm, if they don’t find a revenue stream to support the investments it procured then it’ll fail, and the people with the money happen to e those with ties to the entertainment industries
I really hope Twitter does fail though
Yeah f**k twitter, Facebook too!
@2
yes, just that.
has never been my cup of tea, too mainstream-tv-media-hyped-like, noone would miss it.
Twitter sux. A friend of mine is a Twitter Twat and all he does all day is brag about how much followers he has and he acts like it’s his full time honourable job to ensure that he tweets his crap regularly.
He’s even gone to reposting his tweet crap to people on his MSN and even in chat rooms.
So therefore, I HATE Twitter! I am looking forward to the day when it goes the way of Friendster and Myspace.
Why do we need twitter when we have RSS?
Move over to http://identi.ca ! It’s free software (as in free speech), it can be federated with other µblogging platforms more or less like IRC, so that kind of censorship wouldn’t be too much an issue.
It’s all about sharing, so support free software and get rid of Twitter’s censorship. A win-win solution.
People still use twitter?
LOL @ all of the nerds who think they’re too good for Twitter… I hear your moms calling, it’s time to leave the basement for dinner. I know it’ll be hard to tear yourselves away from World of Warcraft and haul your 300-pound bodies up the stairs, but I’m sure you can do it.
“LOL @ all of the nerds who think they’re too good for Twitter… ”
Ha, ha, ha. Well said Marcus!
Hate to break it to you guys, but posting links to downloads that are clearly illegal, is illegal. Under Twitter’s terms, they have to remove the user. Don’t bitch saying twitter sucks because some idiots aren’t paying attention to the websites they use.
This has Brein’s fingerprints all over it !
Well, practically all my posts on twitter are links to my reviews that I make, but i don’t post hundreds of them every day, so I guess that’s why I’m still around, and my posts aren’t torrents.
ok now im out of twitter
Who checks twitter for torrents? I thought twitter was for people texting on their phones. RSS is for torrents.
twitter!
RALMAO
What a bummer man. What they want to go and do that for?
GG
anon-web-tools.es.tc
The stupidest “service” in the history of the internets. A complete waste of time. Those who say it’s for attention whores with no lives are 100% correct. And if you use Twitter to find torrents, you might as well put your comp in the trash because you obviously don’t know how to use it.
Come On people>if your that un-secured you need twitter,you deserve it.Find a friend in real life.Blog on this…..
For all you people out there saying what is the point of posting to twitter.
Simple.
Distribution.
There is nothing wrong with posting to as many places as possible. What if our RSS went down? Twitter still works (and has been the primary source of our stuff when our website was done) were people bitching then? No, of course not. Because people were still able to get what they wanted.
Everyone having a go at twitter are just idiots that don’t have a clue about anything.
Your unfriendly torrent admin,
NovaKing – EZTV
Twitter sucks. I don’t have any problem with them removing torrent links. It’s their site, they can do what they want.
But they sucked to begin with…so meh.
you can find my site here: http://www.torrentsurf.com
People in here shouting for any Twitter users to get a life when they are here posting comments on torrentfreak. Wonders never cease.
DEMONOID IS BACK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Who cares? Twitter is for no-lifers.
Oh come on twitter’s great!
http://www.twitter.com/movieleak
twitter.com/whatcd is up as well
hmmmm
really those posting twitter is stupid are more than likely not very smart themselves. Twitter allows you to connect to the world as most of the world has twitter. I am not talking about the JBieber crap thats on there but yeah, its really useful. Its how I know there is a new article on torrentfreak and if you actually organize your friends, then its really productive with the list. If you just get on there and expect it to do everything for you, you will probably fail. You have to tool the tool duh.
Twitter is over rated.
I’ve won some cool stuff from contests on twitter. Don’t knock it if you don’t know how to use it.
ISPs spying on traffic is another reason to drop bit torrent and learn how to download files from newsgroups. Learn how at binarynewshowto.com
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