Twitter seems to be on a suspension spree as it recently banned several prominent Twitter handles for copyright violations on the posts made last year.
After Iowa and Iowa State’s Twitter handles, Houston Rockets’ Twitter account was the latest addition to the list of suspended accounts. As of now, we’re not clear about how long the account will be suspended. Prior to suspension, the account had 2.8 million followers.
Post-suspension, the team published a statement stating the suspension shall be temporary and that they are working with Twitter to resolve the issue.
“Our Twitter account has been temporarily suspended due to a few prior social media posts with copyrighted music. We are working to correct the issue now,” read the statement issued by the team on their account’s suspension.
Twitter also suspended several Twitter accounts such as @HawkeyeFootball, @CycloneFB and two other athletic department accounts of the University of Iowa in the recent past. In all these cases, the common issue was the usage of copyrighted music by these Twitter handles in the past.
However, this hasn’t been the first time for the Houston Rockets’ Twitter account in the spotlight. Around 2015, Houston Rockets had to fire their social media manager after an offensive tweet was posted from their team account. The then social media manager Chad Shanks posted a tweet that read, “Shhhhh. Just close your eyes. It will all be over soon,” with an emoji of a horse with a gun to its head. He tweeted this when Houston Rockets was on a 104-93 Game 5 win over the Dallas Mavericks. The team fired Shanks and deleted the tweet and issued an apology.
“It was the heat of the moment. My emotions got the best of me and I didn’t see how that tweet would offend so many people. And that was my mistake; I should have thought that through a little better,” said Shanks after the fiasco due to his offensive tweet.
