Hello Twitter users of Roblox, WoodReviewer here, and today I am not here to talk about wood grain, but rather the preferred way that people seem to like to have wood grain delivered to them, Twitter. As some of you may be aware, there has recently been some drama on Twitter where several prominent members of the Roblox Twitter community have been permanently suspended, including CloneTrooper1019, PixelatedCandy, and Lilly_S, along with some other users having their accounts temporary suspended, such as AsimoISuckAtWoodGrain3089 and ScriptOn. These suspensions appear to be the result of a user reporting super old and out of context Tweets to Twitter to get users suspended. For some, like CloneTrooper, finding these Tweets were probably fairly easy. Lilly seems much more innocent. Not only is she a Roblox employee, but Roblox deemed his safe enough to have her as a toy that is featured in almost every Walmart and Toys R Us in the US, meaning the bar for a owning a Twitter account is higher than being the bar for a children’s toy. Even more troubling was the fact Asimo was suspended, albeit for only 12 hours. I have personally gone through every single one of Asimo’s Tweets atleast 4 times looking for dirt on him, and all I have to say is please don’t do that. He is an incredibly boring man, and this makes the fact he got hit by this even more amazing.

Now, I’m sure some of you are wondering why this matters. And as much as I desperately want to say “It doesn’t affect me, all I care about is wood grain” it does affect me. One needs to remember that Lilly_S is an actual Roblox employee and I have contacted her before on Twitter about actual Roblox stuff. I’ve even had contact with CloneTrooper before over Twitter about a bug that was affecting Asimo3089’s games, who I also notified of the bug over Twitter, and then passed along the bug to the proper authorities at Roblox after I abused it for my own blackmail needs.

For users themselves, Twitter is one of the best ways to contact Devs. Obviously we currently have the Roblox private message system, but unless you want a bunch of URLs to sites that give out free Robux, most people have PMs locked, or atleast limited. We also have the Dev forums, but that is for devs, not fans of devs, and having contact between devs and non devs is pretty much impossible.

Now I’m sure a bunch of you are wondering “Why should I care?” Well, actually not a bunch since I’m pretty sure an angry mob has started to form and head towards Twitter HQ, but I’m sure some of you are wondering why you should care. The simple fact of the matter is that, for better or worse, Twitter is the social media platform Roblox most uses to interact with users. For example, this year there are 4 Bloxy awards that are mostly related to Twitter (Best Tweet, GIF, Fanart, and Twitter account.) While other social media platforms can be nominated, such as best fanart on Instagram maybe, Tweet and Twitter account are solely based on Twitter. This is before you consider that the best way to have you work promoted is by the Roblox Twitter account which is very hard if you lack a Twitter account. The fact of the matter is that being a Roblox personality without a Twitter account is very hard.

Now, before I go any father, I need to say something that I’ve seen mentioned on the Dev forums a bit but rarely mentioned on Twitter: It is against Twitter’s TOS to make a new account to bypass an account suspension. This means if you’re someone like CloneTrooper, you can’t just use an alt and hope this all blows over. This means once you are banned, you are banned if you get reported or Twitter notices. This isn’t like Roblox where a fair number of interns had their original accounts deleted before making a new one and behaving, Twitter is one and done with accounts.

With this one and done thing in mind, you can see why it is harmful for devs to have their Twitter account suspended for no real reason. Twitter codes, for example, have proven to be a valuable way to interact with fans. Twitter polls have helped shaped some updates in Jailbreak, no matter how hard to try to derail them with the bad wood grain on the rails. And again, getting a shout out from the official Roblox Twitter account can be massive and help push a small game struggling to get a decent player base into a decent size game with a large enough play base to survive.

So, what exactly can be done about this? I can say with a fair bit a certainty that DevRel is atleast investigating what is happening. If they are asking for accounts to be restored or just a second look being taken I can’t say. I also know that some of the various accounts that were suspended are going through Twitter’s second round of appeals. But the fact remains that it is scary that someone can seem to take down quite a few accounts by abusing Twitter’s report system, and even if accounts are restored nothing guarantees this won’t happen again. I’m sure Roblox users can start to rebel against Twitter, but I feel like that will go about as well as Meelo rioting on the Roblox forums to remove BC. Ultimately since the situation is still ongoing, I don’t know how it will end and if the results will be satisfactory or lacking.

Personally I feel that even if Twitter completely butchers their response, the worse case scenario for them is that Roblox maybe drops the Twitter related Bloxy awards. Maybe they remove Twitter embeds from the site to show Twitter yes, we do drive a bunch of traffic to you, please respond to us, but I feel even that would be a stretch.  Twitter is Twitter’s own site, so Roblox can’t force them to do anything, only strongly encourage them with monetary losses. Unlike with wood grain, there no fixed way for these things to go, and we’ll only know how it goes when it goes.

I do, however, have a few last parting words. I do know some people that are good friends with those suspended. I also know some who completely hate the guts a few of the suspended. Regardless of how you feel about you various friends or vendettas, you need to realize this goes above this. Some people do depend on Roblox for the livelihood, and Twitter helps them with that. While yes, you can hate people, it is entirely unfair to be happy that they may be ruined over something that was no fault of their own. And remember, if people are brought down through no fault of their own, it is entirely possible the same can happen to you.