In today’s article I will show you how to appeal a locked or suspended Twitter account.
Appeal a locked or suspended account
Fill out the form below to appeal your account being locked, suspended, or having certain features limited on X. If you are attempting to submit for other X support options, you’ll need to appeal your account restriction first.
Your X username (required)
Your email address (required)
This is where we’ll contact you.Description of the problem
Tell us if you’re having a problem accessing your account, or why you don’t believe you violated the X Rules.
Getting suspended – never notified
I’ve had a number of Twitter accounts over the years, and I’ve saved a lot of emails, especially as it pertains to suspensions and appeals. I just checked all of those emails, and I don’t think I’ve ever received an email from Twitter (now X) about any of my accounts being suspended. I always had to notice it by trying to login to the account or visit the account page.
The closest I’ve gotten to a notification was an email long ago, being notified about my account being locked, and being asked to do a password reset.
This is how those emails looked:
Your account may have been compromised by a website or service not associated with Twitter.
We’ve locked your account @*** to keep it safe. In order to log back in, you must change your password.
Or…
Your account, @*** has been locked for violating the Twitter Rules.
Specifically for:
Violating our rules against abusive behavior.
You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.
Please note that repeated violations may lead to a permanent suspension of your account. Proceed to Twitter now to fix the issue with your account.
Then I would do it:
Reset your password?
If you requested a password reset for @***, click the button below. If you didn’t make this request, ignore this email.
Getting a lot of password reset emails?
You can change your account settings to require personal information to reset your password.
And I would get back in my account.
But I’ve never received an email or any notification from Twitter notifying me about my account being suspended. Not before Musk, not after…
Appealing a suspended account
Twitter makes appealing a suspended account very easy. First of all, make sure you are logged into the suspended account.
Then visit this link to file an appeal:
https://help.x.com/en/forms/account-access/appeals
Once the page loads, you will see this:
You will notice that your username and email address are already filled in. All you have to do is describe your problem in the box, and then click submit.
Once you do this, you will be taken to a page that looks like this:
Thank you!
We’ve received your request. We’ll review, and take further action if appropriate.
In some cases, we may send an email with more information to the address you provided. Please check your trash or spam folders to avoid missing the communication.
At this point Twitter will review the situation and get back to you. When I recently did this, they got back to me on the same day, so props on that.
In the past I had also received an email like this after submitting my appeal:
We received your appeal regarding your account. Please reply to this message and confirm that you have access to this email address. Once we receive your confirmation, we’ll review the information you provided and will respond as soon as possible.
We typically suspend accounts for violations of the Twitter Rules (https://twitter.com/rules) or Terms of Service (https://twitter.com/tos). Additionally, repeat violations may result in permanent account suspension.
Or this…
We received your request to have your account reinstated.
Please respond to this email with the reason you believe your account suspension was in error and/or the reason you are requesting an appeal.
Once we receive your response, we will review and provide a follow up response with the outcome of our review. If this request is for an account reinstatement under our new criteria, please allow 3-5 days for us to review and respond. In some instances, it may take us longer to get back to you.
Or this…
Your account appears to have exhibited automated behavior that violates the Twitter Rules: https://support.twitter.com/
articles/18311. In order to continue safely using Twitter, please follow these steps:
- Log in to your account on the web or open your Twitter app (iOS or Android).
- You’ll see a prompt letting you know your account has been locked. Click or tap “Start”.
- Select your country/region from the drop down menu, and then enter your phone number.
- Click “Send code” and Twitter will send you a text message with a confirmation code (note that your standard message rates may apply).
- Enter the code you received in the “Your code” box and click “Submit”.
- You will see a confirmation message that your account is now unlocked.
Once you confirm your identity, it may take up to a few minutes for your account to be unlocked.
If you’re still experiencing an issue after confirming your identity, please reply to this message and provide us with specific details of the problem you’re experiencing. We’ll do our best to help!
Here they wanted to confirm that I have access to the email account or phone number associated to the account, in order to review my appeal.
Unfortunately for me, they refused to restore my account. This is a 6+ year old account, so it was a bit of a blow. But the niche of the account was in a somewhat gray niche, so I understand.
If they don’t restore your account, you will receive an email like this:
Your account was suspended due to violations of X Rules. After reviewing for reinstatement your account will not be restored.
You may also get something like this:
We’re writing to let you know that we’ve permanently suspended your account due to multiple or repeat violations of our rules.
This account will not be restored.
Please do not reply to this email or send us new appeals for this account as we won’t monitor them.
You may also get something like this:
We’re writing to let you know that your account has been suspended due to multiple or repeat violations of our rules.
Please do not reply to this email, or send us new appeals for this account as we won’t monitor them.
You may also get something like this:
Your account has been suspended due to multiple or repeat violations of the Twitter Rules: https://twitter.com/rules.
The following behaviors are violations of the Twitter Rules:
- Creating serial and/or multiple accounts with overlapping use cases
- Evading a permanent suspension through the creation or use of a different account
- Cross-posting Tweets or links across accounts
- Aggressive following, particularly through automated means
As such, these accounts will remain suspended.
For further information, please refer to the following pages:
- Twitter Rules: https://twitter.com/rules
- Automation rules: https://help.twitter.com/
rules-and-policies/twitter- automation - Following rules and best practices: https://help.twitter.com/
rules-and-policies/twitter- following-rules Please do not respond to this email as replies and new appeals for this account will not be monitored.
If they do restore your account, you will receive an email like this:
We’re writing to let you know that we’ve unsuspended your account. Should you run into any trouble logging back in, try requesting a password reset email.
Please note, it may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal.
If you need to get in touch with us again, please file a report through your Twitter app or our forms page, as this account isn’t monitored for replies.
Or this…
We’ve unsuspended 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.
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.
Please do not respond to this email as replies will not be monitored.
Or this…
We’re writing to let you know that we’ve unsuspended your account. We’re sorry for the inconvenience and hope to see you back on Twitter soon.
A little background: we have systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk, and yours was flagged as spam by mistake. Please note that it may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal.
If you need to get in touch with us again, please file a report through your Twitter app or our forms page, as this account isn’t monitored for replies.
Or this…
After reviewing your appeal, we’ve decided to unsuspend your account
Your account was suspended after finding violations of the Twitter Rules. Specifically, our policies prohibiting spam, and fake or artificial account interactions and engagements. This could include selling, purchasing, or attempting to inflate account interactions. It also might mean using third-party apps that claim to get you more followers or retweets, or participating in engagement or follow exchange groups, which are sometimes referred to as “decks.”
Any future violations could lead to a permanent suspension of your account. Please make sure that you, and anyone with access to your account, always follow the Twitter Rules.
Depending on what they decide, you will receive the email letting you know. If they restore your account, you’re good to go. And if they don’t, well, you can always create a new account using a different email address and phone number and so on.
Although, you may be able to use the same phone number that was previously associated with your suspended account. I would also suggest that you use a different browser to create the new account, or at the very least clean the cookies and cache of the browser you are using before creating the new account.
Here is a video I made talking about this:
Summary
In the end, there is nothing you can do to get your account restored other than make your appeal and hope for the best. But Twitter does make it easy to appeal a suspended account, and they will review the situation and reply fairly quickly, as has been my experience. So good job on that!