Twitter may have breached its own regulations by shutting down a satirical account that impersonated Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy.

The account "Madam_Editor" had been amusing and confusing fellow twitterers since early June with satirical tweets that, although fictional, often came close to commenting on real-time occurrences within the newspaper.

The account was suspended on Thursday and it is known that Kennedy was furious with being impersonated online.

Twitter's guidelines on parody, comedy and fan accounts aim to prevent users passing themselves off as other people without making it explicit.

"Twitter users are allowed to create parody, commentary, or fan accounts. Twitter provides a platform for its users to share and receive a wide range of ideas and content, and we greatly value and respect our users' expression. Because of these principles, we do not actively monitor users' content and will not edit or remove user content, except in cases of violations of our Terms of Service," the guidelines state.

"An account's profile information should make clear the creator of the account is not actually the same person or entity as the subject in the parody/commentary."

The satirical Madam Editor account was clearly not actually Geraldine Kennedy's personal account. It adhered to one of the guideline suggestions – "The username should not be the exact name of the subject of the parody" – by using the name "Gezza Kennedy" as opposed to Geraldine Kennedy, but nevertheless, Twitter shut it down after the Irish Times vigorously pursued its closure.

The suspension of a Twitter account that is clearly a parody is very rare. But much like his or her real-life counterpart, the fake Madam Editor will not be silenced, and has now set up a blog called "Madam Editor's Musings" from which to broadcast (http://madameditorlives.blogspot.com).

The first blog post published last Friday titled "Banned" read, "Well, they're delighted. Fintan has been walking around this office this morning with a grin on him bigger than his weekly pile of fan mail from those poor frustrated left wing ladies on The Twitter."

Several theories are still being floated as to who is behind Madam Editor as the parody continues to be the subject of speculation among journalists both inside and outside the Irish Times.

One possibility is that more than one person may be involved, acting on information from one or more people within the Irish Times.

The producer of "political cabaret" Leviathan, Naoise Nunn, confirmed to the Sunday Tribune that he knew the identity of an individual behind the account but refused to name names.

For the moment, although banned, the biting satire will continue online in blog form. It is not known whether or not the Irish Times has contacted the blog service Blogspot or its parent company Google in order to have the latest incarnation of Madam Editor shut down.