An English rock band that has been around for more than 60 years is the subject of censorship on Twitter, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
Here’s the likely reason why and what a band member is saying to Musk.
What Happened: Social media platform Twitter was acquired by Elon Musk for $44 billion in 2022.
Since acquiring the platform, Musk made many changes with focuses on removing bots and spam, increasing engagement and increasing monetization efforts.
Some of the changes have been well received and others not so much.
Lost in some of the changes are potential censorship and community feedback protocols that could limit the visibility of certain posts.
U.K. band The Kinks are reportedly seeing the results of warnings that are being placed on tweets.
“Dear Elon Musk, would Twitter please stop putting warnings on everything from ‘the Kinks'. We are just trying to promote our Kinks music,” Kinks founding member and guitarist Dave Davies tweeted.
Davies shared a screenshot of a tweet about a video from The Kinks that featured a warning stating “We put a warning on this tweet because it might have sensitive content.”
The posts by Davies could be appearing less frequently on the Twitter timeline as a result.
In this case, it would appear that the Twitter algorithm is taking offense to the band’s name and confusing it with websites that could be related to fetishism or sexual content.
Davies went on to share about the success of the band and its long history.
“The Kinks are a brand name. We have been called the Kinks since 1963.”
Davies also said that the word robot should be banned since robots are “ruining our lives.”
“At least I’m a Kink and not a f**kin’ robot.”
Another user on Twitter suggested Davies changes the name of his band to something more family- and advertiser-friendly.
Davies wasn’t a fan of the suggestion, but jokingly offered up the potential name change of “The Elons.”
Related Link: Twitter Preparing To Tackle Misinformation With Birdwatch
Why It’s Important: The Kinks were one of the biggest rock bands in the 1960s and over the years produced hit songs such as “You Really Got Me,” “Lola,” “Come Dancing" and more.
The band had five top 10 singles in the U.S. and nine top 40 albums. In the U.K., the band had 17 top 20 singles and five top 10 albums.
The Kinks were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
Aside from the Twitter battle with Musk, Davies and The Kinks have been in the news this month as the band is celebrating its 60th anniversary and putting out a new 2CD, 2LP collection called “The Journey – Part 1” on March 24.
The album will be released by BMG, a unit of Sony Group Corp SONY. While it's not the press they want, the attention Davies is getting and the potential of Musk mentioning a change could put the album in the spotlight.
A previous change to Twitter that locked account names and nicknames forced musician Doja Cat to be known as Christmas for a short time after previously changing her nickname for the holiday. Doja Cat caught the attention of Musk and the issue was eventually fixed.
Other musicians such as the late David Crosby have used Twitter to reach out to Musk about issues with Tesla vehicles.
Several musicians, including Elton John, announced they would be leaving Twitter after the acquisition by Musk was announced.
As of the time of writing, Musk has not responded to Davies.
Read Next: Elon Musk Is All Over Twitter, Is It A Fluke Or Something Else
Photo: Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
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