If you’d told me when I woke up this morning that I’d no longer have almost 6k followers, that I would be starting from scratch with zero stories in my backlog, I would have told you to stop talking. Not because I wouldn’t believe you, but because the way my week has been going, I would have believed you’d manifest that shit just by saying it. (Over on Medium, so if you’re a member there, here’s my new account, please consider giving me a follow!)
Between my dog deciding she’s Truffle Hunter Extraordinaire aka Morgan the Mushroom Hunter, which translates to my special case black lab insisting she goes out 20 plus times per day to sneak and eat mushrooms in the yard and drive me batshit insane, and a hundred other tiny things culminating into one big shit show, this week has just been…a lot.
Two days ago, I wrote a story, well, I guess it’s better to say I added commentary to things already written, about the ongoing saga of a family who I won’t even name at this point. I quoted the original articles, linked back to them, and made my thoughts and feelings about the situation known. I added warnings, trigger and content, I added caveats that the person had not been charged.
The platform sent me an email stating I violated their TOS regarding copyrights. No warning, other than the email which said my account was suspended. I replied asking for clarification and if there was anything I could do. There isn’t. Apparently unless I get express permission from the original content owner, using the content in such a manner (which just FYI, people do every single day on this and other platforms) can be construed as a violation of the TOS.
I’m not here to argue with them about it. It is what it is. They have the right to suspend any account for any reason they choose, as long as their reason isn’t illegal. I can’t sit here and agree that platforms like Twitter have the right to remove accounts (like Trump etc.) for violated their TOS then whine when mine is removed.
I wasn’t banned, so I’m not breaking any rules by creating a new one. Of course I’m upset, but I also don’t require anyone to become my white knight or get upset and storm the gates on my behalf.
All I ask is, if you followed me before and you enjoyed my work, give me a follow again. I’m starting over, so I have to get to 100 followers again before I can re-join the Partner Program. I will be reposting my work once I can do that, but I’ll also be sharing new things, too. Maybe some new folks will have a look. I’ll be putting up my About Me page again soon so anyone new to me can see what I’m all about.
In the meantime, let’s get (re) started.