Twitter recently celebrating Nation Poetry Day in style, with lots of pages inviting their followers to get creative with rhymes.
The Twitter page for Elite Dangerous was no exception, tweeting: “There once was a pilot from Lave,
“Who wasn’t particularly brave.
“He encountered a Thargoid,
“Who he tried to avoid,
“But now he’s one foot in the grave!#NationalPoetryDay”
There once was a pilot from Lave,
Who wasn’t particularly brave.
He encountered a Thargoid,
Who he tried to avoid,
But now he’s one foot in the grave!#NationalPoetryDay pic.twitter.com/yrHl1O0M1c— Elite Dangerous (@EliteDangerous) October 4, 2018
Cute, right?
Naturally, Elite Dangerous fans were quick to tweet their own game-related poetry, but Twitter itself didn’t take too kindly to one poem in particular…
A Belgium player by the name of Tim Wellens has had his Twitter account suspended after reportedly responding with the following:
“Roses are red
“Violets are blue
“Thargoid or foe
“I will come to kill you.”
As reported by Eurogamer, Twitter went on to suspend the account citing the user had been “violating [its] rules against posting violent threats.”
The full message goes on to add: “You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the physical harm, death or disease of an individual or group of people.”
Wellens has gone on to appeal the suspension, telling Eurogamer: “I explained that Elite is a space game and that thargoids are a fictional alien species in a game, and that I never ever threatened a real person or organisation on Twitter.
“‘Thargoid or foe, I’m coming to kill you’, was directed to the thargoids and enemies in game.”
Twitter has yet to respond to Wellen’s appeal.
“What hurts me the most however is the fact that I feel I’m judged by a computer, and I have no means to defend myself,” Wellens went on to state.
“It’s like fighting an A.I. I understand they have to use software to root out ugly tweets, but I was hoping a human being would do the investigation.
“It would have only taken them five seconds to see that my tweet was completely harmless – and I have seen much more violent tweets than mine.”
Hopefully Wellens will get his account reinstated soon!
GameByte has reached out to Twitter for a response.