Rockets get their Twitter account back only to find they're missing followers

The Houston Rockets Twitter account was suspended Monday afternoon, sending the site afire with jokes and potential reasons why.

The possibilities from Twitter users who weren’t suspended: too many technical fouls, whining and choking in the playoffs.

The team shared in a statement to the Houston Chronicle it was due to the use of copyrighted music in recent posts, a common reason the site suspends heavily followed accounts. Twitter doesn’t give a reason on the page when this happens but links out to why accounts may be suspended in general if one goes directly to the handle URL. The account does not show up in search results while suspended.

You don’t mess with Texas, though, and Twitter had a wide range of reactions to the team’s sudden disappearance. Even Senator Ted Cruz, from Texas, wanted to be involved. (It went over even more poorly than the Rockets suspension.)

The Rockets don’t have as much to tweet about now as they could after falling to the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference semifinals. It was the fourth time in five seasons the Warriors have ended their season and maybe the Rockets are simply over dealing with people.

The Rockets weren’t the only ones to get in trouble. The Iowa football and gymnastics accounts were suspended Saturday as was the Iowa State football account. All were for copyright infringements. College football accounts are commonly suspended for pairing copyrighted music with shareable videos.

Copyright complaints are filed under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and account are suspended until the situation is rectified. Twitter seems to have gone through a DMCA take down Monday, providing a chuckle-worthy start to the week for those who don’t work on the Rockets social team.

Rockets lose 1M followers

The Rockets got their Twitter account back online Thursday only to find it had lost nearly 1 million followers, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The account had 2.8 million followers Monday morning but had only 1.91 million when it came back online. It jumped up to 2.16 million by early Thursday afternoon.

Twitter doesn’t explain why, but accounts that are reactivated do no immediately show the correct number of followers immediately. The correct number is restored within 24 hours, per Twitter, and should only be reported if it’s been more than 48 hours.

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