In a move that surprised absolutely no one familiar with how these things go, a major social platform's freshly minted anti-harassment policy claimed its first high-profile victim: the reporter who spent six months documenting the harassment problem that led to the policy in the first place.
The journalist, who had been covering coordinated harassment campaigns on the platform since 2023, found their account suspended last Tuesday under the platform's new "coordinated inauthentic behavior" ruleset. Their offense? Screenshotting and sharing the harassment they were documenting. Apparently, the algorithm couldn't tell the difference between reporting on a harassment campaign and running one.
"We take these violations very seriously and apply our policies consistently to all users," said a platform spokesperson, apparently with a straight face.
The Timeline, Which Is Extremely Normal
The policy launched on a Monday. The account was suspended by Wednesday. The PR team issued a "we're looking into it" statement on Thursday. By Friday, the account was restored with a brief apology described internally, per sources, as "the minimum viable sorry."
The journalist's article — the one that prompted the policy — remains live on the platform, still being shared by the very accounts that harassed them. Those accounts remain active. A spokesperson confirmed the company is "reviewing the situation holistically."
Holistically.
The platform did not respond to follow-up questions about whether anyone involved in drafting the policy had read the article that inspired it. That silence speaks volumes — specifically, about 40,000 words' worth.