Twitter Apologizes for Not Acting After Threat from Mail Bomb Suspect’s Account Was Reported
Yesterday, as people discovered the social media accounts of mail bomb suspect Cesar Sayoc, one user discovered she had been been threatened by him on Twitter.
And what’s more, Rochelle Ritchie tweeted yesterday that she reported the threat weeks ago but Twitter did not take down the account:
Hey @Twitter remember when I reported the guy who was making threats towards me after my appearance on @FoxNews and you guys sent back a bs response about how you didn’t find it that serious. Well guess what it’s the guy who has been sending #bombs to high profile politicians!!!! pic.twitter.com/xBY8FMbqnq
— R O C H E L L E (@RochelleRitchie) October 26, 2018
Ritchie, a former press secretary for House Democrats, spoke with MSNBC’s Ari Melber last night (video above) and said, “I was livid and I was scared.”
Ritchie eventually received another email from Twitter, after the suspect’s account was taken down, saying the previous message was “sent in error”:
Just received from @Twitter oh so it was an error. Just stop! ? pic.twitter.com/LoGT933W2p
— R O C H E L L E (@RochelleRitchie) October 26, 2018
And Twitter Safety posted an apology last night for not acting on the threat the moment she flagged it:
An update. We made a mistake when Rochelle Ritchie first alerted us to the threat made against her. The Tweet clearly violated our rules and should have been removed. We are deeply sorry for that error.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 27, 2018
We are investigating what happened and will continue to work to improve how we handle concerns raised by anyone on Twitter.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 27, 2018
We want Twitter to be a place where people feel safe, and we know we have lot of work to do.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 27, 2018
[image via screengrab]
