Sean CW Korsgaard, assistant editor and media relations manager for Baen Books, covered here in March for throwing shade on the Nebula Awards results, got his Twitter account suspended in July because he posted a fantasy about travelling back in time to kill directors Joss Whedon and Kevin Smith (Google cache file): [Click for larger image.]
(This was posted to his personal account, not the official Baen account.)
Kevin Smith is the showrunner of Masters of the Universe: Revelation. The post attracted the attention of a great many Kevin Smith fans, maybe even Smith himself since he’s quite active on Twitter. At any rate, some people tagged Smith in their replies.
Shortly thereafter Korsgaard’s account disappeared, suspended for violating Twitter rules.
Although the original tweet is gone, the replies and the thread itself are still online here. Note that the first response by Declan Finn (who else?) registered over 13.5K views, which shows how active the thread became. [Click for larger image.]
In August Korsgaard opened a brand new Twitter account (@SeanCWKorsgaard) where so far he has made only a couple of posts, the earliest dated August 1. His original account (@SCWKorsgaard) remains suspended.
It may come as a surprise to learn Twitter will still ban accounts if enough users complain. But considering Korsgaard fantasized about killing two directors with big fan bases, there’s no telling how many people may have reported him.
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Seems like opening a new account under a different name would be trying to get around Twitter’s ban for behavior.
Wait? Twitter actually still bans users? Who knew? Now admittedly saying you’re going to kill Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon suggests you’ve got less intelligence than a five year old child has, and are far less suitable to be part of our society.
I’m shocked that Twitter would ban someone for breaking the rules. Usually, they ban users for criticizing Emerald Lad.
Also, I don’t think that’s how a media relations manager is supposed to react to stuff…
Anne, I didn’t even know that Twitter still had a media relations manager given that nearly everyone else has other been terminated with extreme prejudice or run screaming as far as they could from what is now X.
I believe she’s referring to Korsgaard’s job with Baen.
To be fair, I thought Twitter had fired their Safety Team as well. Maybe it now consists of one or two beleaguered folks in a tiny broom closet.
Back to media relations, Baen seems to have odd ideas about what constitutes public relations (if I keep previous File 770 articles in mind). I remember the days when I used to buy their books all the time. Now, I am extremely wary.
Mike Glyer says I believe she’s referring to Korsgaard’s job with Baen.
Ahhh, thanks for clearing that up. Makes more sense than Twitter having someone who actually does that job.
Yikes
I wondered why he switched Twitter accounts…and didn’t say anything about it. Hunh
Twitter is still suspending and banning accounts for violating their TOS. This is not new behavior.
Regards,
Dann
The Africans know I’m not an African. I’m an American. – Whoopi Goldberg
Isn’t this the plot of Aporia?
Talking about killing someone in the present , even if whimsically, is clearly pushing the envelope of decent conduct, if not tearing it. But fantasising about travelling back in time and killing somebody 19 years ago is quite obviously non-serious, and no more than hyperbolic editorial opinion.
I suspect that Twitter/X must be using bots to scan for problematic phrases and issue bans without human intervention, because no sane human would have taken this seriously. Then again, perhaps Elon Musk is taking the final decisions himself, since the latter description is likely inapplicable to him.
I can’t believe he got banned from Twitter. Nobody gets perma-banned from Twitter these days, even though so many people constantly post even worse things which can/do/might/will happen, as opposed to theoretical chronological murders. And yet, it seems to be true. Maybe Elon’s a big fan of those two?
Getting a new account, they seem to be fine with, although it’s against the old rules.
Mr/Ms/Mx Faux Bravo deserves kudos. How about he just suck less, indeed.
Baen is in even worse shape than we thought, when their PR guy is out there lying about Nebulas and then (even jokingly) to kill very popular white guys who’ve done a lot of work that fandom likes. He’s a PR nightmare and should have been fired forthwith.
I know Toni doesn’t give a crap about proofreading, but surely bringing the company into disrepute is a firing offense? You can’t tell me he’s the only one out of millions of people who could do the job without pissing off so many potential readers.
The poor author, who was caught up in the Nebula kerfuffle with no input, should be allowed to do something about this. I haven’t read her book, but am told by a number of people whose opinion I respect that it’s good. I bet she could have gotten a Dragon Award nomination for alt-hist, maybe even novel, if it weren’t for him poisoning the well. She needs to be allowed to make her opinion known — or hopefully get a new publisher who won’t tank her chances.
This is no way to run a railroad. @Anne Marble is “extremely wary”, and I can’t count how many people I’ve heard say/post that they simply aren’t buying anything from Baen any more, starting at least from the traitorous attempted coup. Some of those have said they’ll go roving the high seas for copies of books by the decent people to avoid giving Baen any more cash — and then sending a few bucks directly to the author if they can find a PayPal or whatever the kids these days use.
Feh.
@Terry Hunt
He obviously doesn’t have a time machine and it was a joke, albeit one in very poor taste. Nonetheless, you shouldn’t post murder fantasies, even as a joke.
However, I’m pretty sure that the ban is not the result of bots scanning for problematic phrases. Both Joss Whedon and Kevin Smith are very popular directors with big fan bases. As the replies show, some of their fans, mostly Kevin Smith’s, found the tweet. I suspect that enough people reported him that Twitter couldn’t ignore it.
Because I have occasionally reported death threats that did not involve time travel, but also didn’t involve famous people and Twitter inevitably finds nothing objectionable. Twiitter also doesn’t think that people posting photos of license plates of cars that are parked in “no parking” zones or have bumper stickers that someone finds objectionable and tagging the police is a problem. Though they still react when you report hardcore porn imagery with no sensitive media tag.
It seems what triggers a ban now is the volume of complaints. Murder fantasies involving famous directors attract a lot of complaints, whereas a murder fantasy caused by a neighbourhood squabble or a car hater reporting illegally parked cars don’t attract sufficient complaints.