Most social media companies police user content to some degree. Some are more heavy-handed than others. Facebook forbids sexual content, cruel and insensitive material and so on. More recently Facebook has been taking down posts that provide viewpoints on COVID-19 treatment that are different than what the incompetent officials at WHO proclaim. Zuckerberg calls such viewpoints dis-information.
Obviously, information that does not align with globalists’ viewpoint must be dangerous. So, if you have been a good doctor for decades and you find a treatment protocol that is effective, you cannot post such information on Facebook.
This is censorship. It’s exactly like what happened in China at the beginning of this epidemic. Information regarding the illness disappeared. Only now it’s a large multi-national company that is doing the censoring, not a government.
Facebook also decided to oppose the ability of people to organize peaceful protests against the various lockdowns going on around the country. Facebook specifically disabled such accounts and notified authorities about these legitimate First Amendment activities. This resulted in the arrests of people for trying to exercise their First Amendment rights.
Twitter had taken a more hands-off approach although some material might be removed. Flame wars are legendary on the platform. One area where they, in principle, exercise regulation of content is “glorification of violence.” And some such tweets are removed.
Twitter has been under considerable pressure from left-wing agitators. These agitators have made it their mission to see how many tweets from conservatives they can get removed. Twitter has been doing so even though it is often difficult to understand just how such tweets do not conform to the guidelines.
Glorification of violence is one such topic where Twitter has decided to lower the hammer. It has flagged several posts from prominent Republican politicians including PDJT and claimed that their messages violate its terms of service regarding the standard.
Of particular notice was a tweet by PDJT as the riots were picking up steam.
How this tweet violates their terms of service is unclear at best. As David Payne at Just The News notes:
A martial response to civic destruction is not, on its face, a “violent crime,” nor are looters themselves part of a “protected group.” Twitter itself does not offer any explanation as to what part of Trump’s tweet specifically triggered the violation, so users are left to guess.
Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has been spoken out.
“Big tech companies like Twitter appear to care more about the public’s perception of their brand than allowing free discourse on their platform. They have tilted the scales to editorialize and shape our conversations.”
“The double standard exhibited by these tech giants is staggering. Twitter targets users like President Trump and myself when we promote the America First view that people should be held accountable for their violent actions but allow accounts espousing Antifa’s violent propaganda to remain online. We need to bring an end to this unacceptable hypocrisy by reforming the laws that give entities like Twitter so much protection.”
When leftist individuals tweet calls for violence, they are not flagged or removed.
Colin Kaepernick tweeted: “When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction.” Crickets.
Paul Heideman tweeted a piece titled “When Rioting Works.” The piece, which explained how violent property destruction “can be effective in winning social change,” has gone unflagged.
Also unflagged was a viral thread by Root writer Michael Harriot, who explained to his readers “all the times when rioting and violence worked.”
During the Covington HS hysteria, Reza Aslan, a Univ. of California professor, responded to a photograph of one of the boys, a minor,. Aslan wrote: “Honest question. Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid’s?” The tweet was still up a year later. Isn’t this inciting violence against a teenage boy?
Perhaps even more telling are tweets by Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran. David Payne reports,
“The Zionist regime is a deadly, cancerous growth and a detriment to this region. It will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed,” Khamenei declares in one tweet. Elsewhere, comparing Zionist thought to a viral infection — a perennial anti-Semitic trope — the Supreme Leader writes: “The long-lasting virus of Zionism will be uprooted thanks to the determination and faith of the youth.”
Again crickets where these tweets are concerned.
Twitter needs to get away from censoring tweets based on how many reports they get against the appropriateness of a tweet. Few will complain if there are clear, understandable rules that are enforced with equal justice.
As things stand right now, Twitter clearly has their fingers on the scale and are censoring viewpoints along political lines. That doesn’t work in this country.