Twitter has repeatedly suspended an account critical of the Affordable Care Act.
The account, @mycancellation, was just getting started when Twitter suspended it—twice—before reinstating the account late Saturday night.
The purpose of @mycancellation or mycancellation.com was to allow some of the millions of Americans who are losing their health insurance to post pictures of themselves with their cancellation letters. “Help us show Washington the faces who lost what they liked,” the account asked. “ObamaCare canceled your health insurance. Now, send us your letter,” the tagline for the website advertised.
Real ppl are losing insurance they were told they could keep. Send your picture & letter: letters@mycancellation.com pic.twitter.com/G0XY6IyQ4G
— My Cancellation (@MyCancellation) November 3, 2013
The Twitter account quickly gained steam and had over 1,000 followers before Twitter suspended it.
Late Saturday night Heather Higgins, CEO and president of the Independent Women’s Voice, announced on Facebook that the account was suspended again.
“We were suspended yesterday late afternoon without a notice email,” Victoria Coley, who along with Eric Kohn is running the account, told The Daily Caller.
Kohn managed to get the account reinstated. “Tonight shortly before 11:30pm ET the handle was canceled again,” Coley told TheDC. “We are looking into the issue now to see whether Twitter can give us a reason.”
“looks like disproportionately large # of users, including ones you follow or @replied, have chosen to either block acct or report as spam” — My Cancellation (@MyCancellation) November 3, 2013
Higgins speculated about why the account was canceled on the website Ricochet.com. “Since we haven’t abused any of Twitter’s (seemingly quite subjective) standards, either someone at Twitter objects to the real cost of these ‘liked insurance I wanted to keep’ cancellations being given a human face,” Higgins wrote, “or there is an organized campaign by Obamacare-reality-deniers to spam Twitter with false claims of abuse. Either way, keep those photos coming!”
In writing #CantKeepIt • “Due to Health Care Reform you will no longer be able to renew w/ your current benefit plan” pic.twitter.com/temR9ZSme3
— My Cancellation (@MyCancellation) November 4, 2013
Late Saturday night the account was active again.
Back 2 what we are here to do:Calling out broken promises “If you like your plan you can keep your plan” & sharing your cancellation letters
— My Cancellation (@MyCancellation) November 3, 2013
Twitter.com could not be reached for comment.
Update: After this article was published, Higgins wrote to TheDC, “Victoria’s Twitter account has been hacked and tweets [have been] sent out that are not hers.”