Bishop Kevin Doran

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Locked Account

Twitter locks Catholic bishop out of account, restricting his ability to make new tweets, after he tweeted statement critical of euthanasia: Currently the Dáil Éireann, or in English the "Assembly of Ireland," is debating in committee over whether to pass the "Dying with Dignity Bill" which would basically legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Republic of Ireland. Kevin Doran, the Bishop of Elphin, was forced to delete his tweet criticizing the normalization of euthanasia in contemporary society, and was subsequently locked out of his account essentially suspending him from the platform. Doran's violating tweet read as follows: "There is dignity in dying. As a priest, I am privileged to witness it often. Assisted suicide, where it is practiced, is not an expression of freedom or dignity, but of the failure of a society to accompany people on their 'way of the cross'." The tweet also included a link to an article but TechWatch was unable to identify its subject matter. Twitter indicated in a notice, which had screenshots of it posted to Twitter by Irish journalist David Quinn, that Doran's tweet had violated the platform's "rules against promoting or encouraging suicide or self-harm." The notice from Twitter was a response to an appeal filed by Doran after he was locked out of his account. "Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision," said the notice, indicating Twitter had rejected the appeal. Doran has yet to tweet anything new since it was made known Twitter locked his account and deleted one of his tweets. "After weeks of Gino Kelly's Euthanasia Bill losing momentum and receiving backlash, Twitter have BANNED its fiercest critic on Twitter for a tweet criticising Euthanasia," tweeted Catholic Arena, a Catholic news and opinion site. "They are refusing to give Bishop Kevin Doran his account back."            

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