Twitter is locking people out of their accounts, here’s why

It's been just a few days since Europe's GDPR rules went into effect and the regulations have already had a pretty disastrous effect on a large number of Twitter users.

Previously, the company's been suspending the accounts of people who joined Twitter before they were 13 – even if they're now older – due to new European privacy laws.

It's not clear just how many accounts have been affected, but a look at the #TwitterLockout hashtag shows a substantial number of users have reported suspensions in recent days. VentureBeat also reports that at least one business account, which had listed a "birthdate" as the company's founding date, had also been suspended.

Social media posts land activist a 10-year imprisonment in UAE

Prominent Emirati activist Ahmed Mansoor has been sentenced to 10 years in jail and fined 1 million AED ($272,000) on charges of criticising the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government on social media, The National newspaper reported recently.

A trade and tourism hub, the UAE is an absolute monarchy that tolerates little public criticism of its ruling system and has prosecuted Mansoor and other pro-democracy activists for what it called insulting the country’s leaders.

Mansoor was among five activists convicted of those charges in 2011 amid the “Arab Spring” protests calling for reform in other Arab states and was arrested in March 2017, aftre being accused of promoting a sectarian and hate-incited agenda.