By 
SOCIAL media platform X has apologised to a Tyrone disability rights campaigner after his multiple accounts were mistakenly suspended on three weeks ago on July 4.
Greencastle man, Dermot Devlin, the founder of disability rights blog My Way Access, had thousands of followers on his three X accounts and was a prolific ‘tweeter’ prior to his unexpected suspension earlier this month.
Mr Devlin confirmed to We Are Tyrone that access to his personal account had been restored.
He is a well-known campaigner on accessibility issues, appearing regularly on television and radio.
Mr Devlin said that he tried to reach out to X to find out why he has been suspended, but has been unable to speak to anyone from the social network.
He previously said, “The only email I got was on July 4 which said, ‘Your account has been suspended for violating the X Rules due to a user report’ and ‘Violating our rules against evading suspension’.
“This was the only email I got from X. I had no prior warnings of rule violations until after the suspensions were issued.”
Mr Devlin also said he was ‘completely hampered’ by my suspension.
He said, “It is restricting the work I do to raise awareness and be a loud voice for deaf and disabled people. July is Disability Pride Month and X has silenced me.”
Supporters of Mr Devlin, including BBC Radio’s William Crawley, GAA pundit Joe Brolly, Amnesty International’s Patrick Corrigan and a multitude of disabled activists and groups from across Ireland and the UK, have publicly called for a review of his suspension.
In a message sent to Mr Devlin from X a spokesperson said, “We’re writing to let you know that we’ve unsuspended your account. We have systems that find and remove multiple automated spam accounts in bulk, and yours was flagged as spam by mistake.
“Please note that it may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal.
“We’re sorry for the inconvenience and hope to see you back on X soon.”
The Tyrone Herald did make efforts to contact X directly, but since billionaire Elon Musk bought over the Twitter brand and changed its name to X, there is now no avenue to contact their press office.
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