Twitter flagged and penalized a tweet by President Trump, which is fine. Twitter’s a private company, and Trump’s tweet was bluster unbecoming of a president.
But Twitter gets absurd when it tries to claim that this action was in accordance with a general rule.
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We’ve placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our policy against abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.https://t.co/AcmW6O6d4t
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) June 23, 2020
This is a laughable justification. First off, what is the “identifiable group”? Is there actually a group of Black Lives Matter secessionists in downtown Washington that Twitter is protecting?
But also, it’s certainly not true that Twitter cracks down on all tweets that include “a threat of harm against an identifiable group.” People threaten harm against groups all the time on Twitter. Threatening harm against people you think deserve harm is a major category of tweets.
For instance, here’s Bernie Sanders threatening jail for an identifiable group.
The business model of Wells Fargo and Wall Street is fraud. The time has come to break up Wells Fargo and other behemoth financial institutions. No bank should be too big to fail and no CEO should be too big to jail. https://t.co/15tNEUxkWZ
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 9, 2019
Now, possibly, you believe that prison is a “correctional facility” and that a few years behind bars would help rather than harm bankers. Fine, how do you explain how this tweet isn’t threatening harm against an identifiable group?
President Obama: “America will complete its mission in Afghanistan and achieve our objective of defeating the core of al Qaeda.”
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) February 13, 2013
I suppose you could take a Socratic view and say that defeating al Qaeda would not harm al Qaeda fighters but actually help them by making them no longer be al Qaeda. Fine. This next one is a bit harder.
And it would be a short war my friend. The government has nukes. Too many of them. But they’re legit. I’m sure if we talked we could find common ground to protect our families and communities.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) November 16, 2018
This was a member of Congress tweeting a threat of nuclear warfare (which is harmful) against gun owners. And then there’s this one:
When u love women u behave as if u do by acting in their favor. I ❤️Women. That’s why I provide abortions. https://t.co/QsSKhc1nK1
— Dr. Willie Parker (@DrWillieParker) March 8, 2017
He’s promising to continue harming the group identifiable as the unborn. And then there’s this guy, whose tweet is still up as of 5:15 p.m. The Tweet itself is both harmful and a threat.
This Karen cut me off, break checked some almost causing a accident flipped me off and called me out of my name. She didn’t know I had time today. #karenareyouokay #karen #blacktwitter pic.twitter.com/sQsKpLcE6D
— Karlos Dillard (@wypipo_h8) June 23, 2020
My point isn’t to defend Trump’s tweet. It’s to say that Twitter should stop pretending to have policies it clearly doesn’t have. Its real policy is that it doesn’t want to get harassed, as Facebook has, by censorious liberals.
