Monday 2 March 2015

That's it: no more ColdFusion_12 or CFClient

G'day:
You might or might not have twigged that I was running the @CFClient and @coldfusion_12 Twitter accounts. They were parody / pisstake / satirical account gently prodding the general business approach of the Adobe ColdFusion Team.

Well, anyway, someone filed an official complaint about them, so Twitter has closed them both down.

Twitter's email said this:

@cfclient
Hello,

It has come to our attention that your Twitter account is in violation of the Twitter Rules, specifically the policy on Impersonation: http://support.twitter.com/entries/18366-impersonation-policy.

Impersonation is pretending to be another entity in order to deceive, and is strictly prohibited. This account has been suspended and will not be restored.

Thanks,

Twitter

And the linked-to document says this:

Impersonation is a violation of the Twitter Rules. Twitter accounts portraying another person in a confusing or deceptive manner may be permanently suspended under the Twitter impersonation policy.

An account will not be removed if:
  • the user shares your name but has no other commonalities, or
  • the profile clearly states it is not affiliated with or connected to any similarly-named individuals.

Accounts with similar usernames or that are similar in appearance (e.g. the same background or avatar image) are not automatically in violation of the impersonation policy. In order to be impersonation, the account must also portray another person in a misleading or deceptive manner.

Twitter users are allowed to create parody, commentary, or fan accounts. Please refer to Twitter’s parody, commentary, and fan account policy for more information about these types of accounts.
Now I didn't clearly name the account @CFClient_parody (etc) because that would negate the satire. I did clearly mark the @CFClient account with a note #PoesLaw, which should have made it clear. The thing about satire is that one doesn't go "hahahahaha lolz its joke!!1!".

In the case of the ColdFusion_12 account, the avatar for it was:


Which kinda demonstrates it's not "real".

TBH, I can almost see Twitter's point with the @ColdFusion_12 account: obviously at some point in the future there will be a ColdFusion 12. But clearly it doesn't exist yet, and it's neither a person nor an entity yet, so I could argue it both ways. You know me: I could argue black is white for a while, at least convicing myself I'm right ;-)

In the case of @CFClient, Twitter are being f***wits. CFClient is unambiguously not a person nor an entity which one could legitimately thing might be being misrepresented by the satire.

However even if it was... hasn't it been discussed thoroughly in the media recently that satire is actually completely all right? Even if it does make the target squirm a bit (well: especially ~). Uncharacteristically for me, not a single comment was mean-spirited or rude. It was all for a bit of a laugh (and, I admit, only a bit of a laugh: Saturday Night Live would not be reaching out to me any time soon).

Anyway, I do hope people got at least a slight chuckle out of the daft things @CFClient said. The @ColdFusion_12 account never ended up with much content, so you probably missed that one entirely.

And - and now I am assuming it was someone at Adobe that complained - you're a humourless f***. Well. Done. You.

--
Adam