Last night some strange things happened on Twitter – users who used an absolutely harmless word on Sunday were suddenly blocked en masse on the platform. Although the wave of bans has since ended and the word can now be posted without any problems, the mystery remains.

Twitter

What happened? Twitter has fixed a bug that previously caused a stir. Because whoever used the word “Memphis” had to accept a ban. The accounts of affected users have now been fully restored. Nevertheless, the question arises for many, why this coincidental word is responsible for a blocking.

After the bug was fixed by an update within a few hours, Twitter issued an official statement. It apologized for the problem and assured users that no one would risk a ban for a harmless tweet.

Memphis

Individual users were blocked for up to 12 hours. After it became clear which word to tweet to trigger the bug, several other users followed suit. Lo and behold, it actually worked: Whoever posted the M-word yesterday evening has received a ban. The strange error was fixed that same evening.

Microsoft?

So the only question left is how this strange mistake came about and why the word “Memphis” ended up on Twitter’s forbidden list. Because people from the city of the same name in Tennessee or fans of the footballer Memphis Depay would be disadvantaged by blacklisting this word.

One theory points to tech giant Microsoft. Because the word “Memphis” was the code name for the Windows 98 operating system at the time. How that should have led to the error on Twitter is unclear. So it is and will remain a mystery.

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