DESMOND TUTU has had his Twitter account restored after it was accidently suspended yesterday.
The 81-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate launched @TutuLegacy the official account of the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, only to find that it had been blocked for “aggressively following” behaviour.
Among the people Tutu chose to follow were Nelson Mandela, Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama.
His daughter Reverend Mpho Tutu who heads the Foundation said: “Twitter has not explained how following 30 people could be construed as ‘aggressive following’ or whether the number of people who followed @TutuLegacy in a short space of time was to blame.”
Desmond Tutu first tweet shortly after the account went live was in an ode to the famous words uttered by Nelson Mandela on his retirement from public life: “I am an elderly and decrepit. Don’t Tweet me; I’ll Tweet you!” the Archbishop debuted on Twitter.
This was quickly followed by his daughter, the Reverend Mpho who said: “Tata Tutu in translation: I’m a bit nervous about social media at my age, but I send you my love.”
During the suspension the reverend pleaded for the account to reopened.
She said: “I hope the powers that be at Twitter find it in their hearts to fix the problem and let us communicate again. We need to reassure all those people who started following us today that this is the real deal!”
The suspension was temporary and on Thursday afternoon the problem was fixed and Twitter sent an apology explaining what had happened.
It said that the social media site had “automated systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk” therefore had suspended the account by mistake.
As soon as Tutu’s account was back up and running it tweeted: “We got caught up in a spam cleanup. Glad it wasn’t something we said.”
The Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation was founded on the pillars of spirituality, human dignity and conflict resolution.
Reverend Tutu said it hoped to use social media platforms to reach out to as many people as possible.
She said: “We want to ensure that my parents work and legacy inspire current and future generations.”