Harvard Islamic Studies Program's X account suspended for 'platform manipulation and spam'

The Harvard Islamic Studies Program’s X account was suspended for violating the platform’s rules on “manipulation and spam.”

Harry Bastermajian, director of Harvard’s Islamic Studies Program told the Harvard Crimson their X (formerly Twitter) account was suspended on Feb. 22 for “violating rules against platform manipulation and spam.”

“We were really surprised,” Bastermajian said. “We don’t use Twitter all that often. We’re just posting for events, talks, we retweet things from other centers of Harvard and programs at other universities.”

Bastermajian said the suspension raised “red flags” began to pop up after the suspension.

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“Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies feels under attack right now,” Bastermajian said. “So that’s why red flags started popping up when I saw this suspension.”

The program director said an appeal was sent to X, but his team hasn’t heard anything.

Bastermajian told the Harvard Crimson he didn’t see any suspicious activity on the X account.

”When I was going through our DMs, trying to see if there’s anything there, I didn’t see anything there,” Bastermajian said. “And so the spam part didn’t make any sense to me.”

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“Twitter was one of the ways you get people to listen, and Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern Studies is very active on Twitter,” Bastermajian added. “It was a good space for us.”

Campus Reform has reached out to Harvard for comment.