Twitter Bans Consumer Advocate Exposing Counterfeits And Scams

Twitter account shakeout destructive and dangerous

August 26, 2019, Los Angeles, CA – Twitter can't be trusted to provide an impartial and credible social media platform, and is failing to adequately anticipate and combat disinformation. Twitter manipulates its micro-blogging platform to control when and what they want viewers to see.

The consequences can be severe. Twitter's overzealous attempt to eliminate disinformation and abusers of its platform is reckless and destructive for legitimate account holders and dangerous for the public and consumers. Despite Twitter's removal of 70 million accounts, the abusive players remain on Twitter while valuable information is removed. Perhaps the account suspensions have a more nefarious foundation.

The Counterfeit Report, an award-winning consumer advocate and counterfeit watchdog, utilized Twitter for 7 years to provide research and information to government agencies, news outlets, law enforcement, industry specialists, and consumers. No ads, no politics, no bots -- just factual information and alerts about dangerous and potentially deadly counterfeit, fraudulent, and replica products sold worldwide on Amazon, eBay, Walmart, DHgate, and Alibaba. The alerts attracted hundreds-of-thousands of interested viewers.

Inexplicably, Twitter axed The Counterfeit Report's Twitter account with a simple notation; "your account is suspended." Weeks of repeated requests and appeals were acknowledged but never received a response, however The Counterfeit Report's national Press Release on the suspension was viewed 36 times by Twitter Press Relations and staffers.

Curiously, after an inquiry from CBS News the account was immediately restored without explanation, only to be permanently suspended weeks later.

Coincidentally, the suspension and account termination came when The Counterfeit Report detailed Amazon sales of two dangerous products; counterfeit prescription Oxycodone Pill Dies to manufacture fake Mallinckrodt Oxycodone M30 pills, along with the requisite tablet binding powder, filler, and pill press machines, and sales of counterfeit Align® Probiotic Supplement pills, a Procter and Gamble product. Authorities in San Diego are investigating to determine the source of the fake Oxycodone M30 pills believed linked to local overdoses and four deaths. Procter and Gamble responded, "we don't have an official statement to share at this time."

Images: © The Counterfeit Report. Mallinckrodt Oxycodone M30 pill image insert added for clarity.

Twitter has some explaining to do. Was this an independent decision based on actual factual examination by Twitter, a response to a complaint from a corporate giant, or motivated by Twitter's totalitarian agenda?

Apparently, Twitter's commitment to free speech and consumer safety on its platform is as lacking as Amazon is at stopping the flood of counterfeit, dangerous, and potentially deadly products continually listed on their websites. Twitter is manipulating what they want to be seen.

In 2015, Twitter's then-chief executive, Dick Costolo, acknowledged the problem in a company memo: "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years."

They still do.