Some Albertans who follow Premier Jason Kenney on Twitter got a surprise notification Monday afternoon: they had been “autoblocked.”
That prevented Albertans from viewing the premier’s social media account, where he frequently posts news releases, livestreams of press conferences and even messages to other politicians, like when he wished Opposition Leader Rachel Notley a “speedy recovery” after she announced she had tested positive for COVID-19.
As of publication, Kenney had about 304,000 followers.
According to the social media platform’s website, an autoblock is a feature Twitter is experimenting with as part of its safety mode, detecting and blocking “potentially harmful language or repetitive, unwelcome interactions.”
“Autoblock is Twitter’s way of helping people control unwelcome interactions. When someone is in Safety Mode, Twitter automatically blocks another account that’s engaging in potentially abusive or spammy behaviour,” reads a frequently-asked-questions page. “If you get autoblocked, you’ll remain autoblocked for seven days.”
The premier’s press secretary confirmed to Global News that the move was not instigated by the premier or his office, and caught them by surprise. The premier’s office is looking into it, according to the press secretary.
It was also unexpected for Albertans who have been both critics and supporters of Kenney.
“Twitter has ‘autoblocked’ me for ‘spam.’ I can’t retweet Kenney anymore, who I support,” Linda_T tweeted.
“I have NEVER sworn to, denigrated or personally insulted (Jason Kenney),” Jason Scott tweeted. “I’ve asked for accountability and transparency. I’ve challenged Kenney on his posts and policies. I demanded better. And now I’m blocked.”
And at least one journalist was caught in the autoblock dragnet.
“I almost never interacted with/tagged Jason Kenney,” Adam Louis of the Agassiz Harrison Observer tweeted. “Very strange.”
“Is there a political science term for when the premier of your province gets autoblocked by Twitter?” asked Yasmeen Abu-Laban, a University of Alberta political science professor tweeted. Abu-Laban is also the Canada Research Chair for politics of citizenship and human rights.
Jamie Boisvenue, an epidemiologist and PhD student at the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, surmised his autoblock was the result of presenting “real world evidence on why ending Alberta (public health) mandates was ill-guided.”
But that’s not necessarily how an autoblock or safety mode works.
A Twitter spokesperson confirmed the default setting for safety mode is “off.”
Twitter rolled out the safety mode feature to half of Canadian accounts on Feb. 15, after starting to test the feature in September 2021. Half of accounts in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand also got the feature in mid-February.
On its fall launch, senior product manager Jarrod Doherty explained some of how the autoblocks work:
“When the feature is turned on in your Settings, our systems will assess the likelihood of a negative engagement by considering both the Tweet’s content and the relationship between the Tweet author and replier. Our technology takes existing relationships into account, so accounts you follow or frequently interact with will not be autoblocked,” Doherty wrote.
On its FAQ, Twitter acknowledges its autoblock technology is imperfect. It also says the account using Safety Mode can “undo any autoblock mistakes at any time.”
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