NDAA, SOPA and Occupy Content Not Being Censored By Twitter, Experts Claim

Twitter is not censoring Tweets related to NDAA, SOPA, Occupy Wall Street and Anonymous, according to claims by a growing chorus of observers and the social media giant itself.

But a number of Twitter users, including me, have found their Twitter accounts restricted or shut down after they posted content related to the National Defense Authorization Act, Stop Online Privacy Act, Anon and OWS. And we're not so easily convinced.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group aimed at protecting openness on the Web, is the latest organization to say that the claims are not accurate.

On Monday night, after a day of allegations and denials between affected Twitter users and those who question the contention that they were targeted by censorship, the EFF's Trevor Timm Tweeted that the claims were false.

The answer is no. This story has been debunked, Timm wrote.

Timm's words seem to back up Twitter's assertion that it is not censoring, and that the account of David Seaman, the Business Insider who started a firestorm when he alleged in a Sunday column that his Twitter account was closed because he spoke too much about Occupy and SOPA, was incorrect.

He wrote in his article that he believed his Twitter account was closed because he was talking too much about Occupy Wall Street ... and talking too much about the controversial detainment without trial provisions contained in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

But Twitter denied that claim, reinstated his account Sunday after his article went online, and told him that they never mediate content. Period, and the company's support later sent him another message.

Hello, Twitter has automated systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk. Unfortunately, it looks like your account got caught up in one of these spam groups by mistake, Twitter's message read. I've restored your account; sorry for the inconvenience. Please note that it may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal.

But Seaman, a host of other Twitter users who I reported on Monday and who experienced service restrictions, and I, are taking these claims with a grain of salt.

It's easy to reinstate an account when your actions are exposed. Seaman and I just hope it was (but suspect it wasn't) nothing more than a series of coincidences that has come to a close.