X Suspends Account Belonging to Harvard Islamic Studies Program

The X account belonging to the Harvard Islamic Studies Program was suspended on Feb. 22 for “violating rules against platform manipulation and spam,” according to Harry Bastermajian, the program’s executive director.

Bastermajian, who discovered the account’s suspension on March 8, questioned whether it was motivated by Islamophobia or racism. He said his team did not receive any prior warning about the suspension.

“Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies feels under attack right now,” Bastermajian said. “So that’s why red flags started popping up when I saw this suspension.”

A media representative for X did not respond to requests for comment regarding the suspension of the Harvard Islamic Studies Program’s account.

Bastermajian said his team appealed the account suspension to X on March 8 and they received an email confirming the appeal had been received on the same day, but no further responses have come from X since.

“We were really surprised,” Bastermajian said. “We don’t use Twitter all that often. We’re just posting for events, talks, we retweet things from other centers of Harvard and programs at other universities.”

When Bastermajian and his team first learned that the account had been suspended for the reasons cited in the email from X, they checked to see if the account had been hacked or compromised, but did not find any suspicious activity.

“When I was going through our DMs, trying to see if there’s anything there, I didn’t see anything there,” Bastermajian said. “And so the spam part didn’t make any sense to me.”

Bastermajian also said he was confused about the allegation of a “platform manipulation” violation.

“I don’t really know what that is, to be honest with you,” he added.

Before the suspension took place, the Harvard Islamic Studies Program’s X account had been active since 2010 and had around 7,000 followers, according to Bastermajian.

“Twitter was one of the ways you get people to listen, and Islamic Studies and Middle Eastern Studies is very active on Twitter,” Bastermajian said. “It was a good space for us.”

Bastermajian said he informed several people about the account’s suspension, including an employee in the Office of General Counsel and peers from sister programs at Georgetown, Cambridge, and the University of Edinburgh.

Bastermajian said he felt “supported” by his colleagues and emphasized that the Harvard Islamic Studies program is “not political.”

“It feels personal,” Bastermajian said. “I know I shouldn’t really take it that way, but it kind of does.”

—Staff writer Elizabeth R. Huang can be reached at lizzy.huang@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @lizzyrhuang.