Twitter temporarily limiting users for abusive behaviour

Twitter appears to be placing temporary usage restrictions on accounts it detects "potentially abusive behaviour" from. Several users of the micro-blogging site claim to have received a message from the site, telling them that their account has been limited for 12 hours. The penalty cuts the reach of the user's updates, making them visible to their followers only, and not the wider Twitter community. Twitter's user guidelines identify violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct, multiple account abuse, impersonation and the publishing of other people's private information as activities that could warrant suspension. "We believe in freedom of expression and in speaking truth to power, but that means little as an underlying philosophy if voices are silenced because people are afraid to speak up," it says.