There are countless human rights abuses across the world. So why is the United Nations focusing on Twitter temporarily suspending some American journalists for doxxing?
Volker Turk, the U.N.’s pretentiously titled high commissioner for human rights, warned that “serious concerns” about Twitter remain and that the site has a “responsibility to respect human rights” and Twitter CEO Elon Musk “should commit to making decision based on publicly-available policies that respect rights, including free speech. Nothing less,” Turk said.
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Turk, who has been on the job for just over two months, clearly has his eye on the ball. His predecessor, Michelle Bachelet, could not even be bothered to attend an event about China’s genocide against the Uyghurs. (Bachelet’s office ended up finally releasing a report about China’s genocide in September, just minutes before her term ended and she wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore). Bachelet had also accused the United States of potential human rights abuses for not letting rioters burn down more buildings. She had also accused Israel of war crimes for not letting Hamas shoot missiles at it indiscriminately. But actual human rights violations? Nope.
Not to be outdone, Turk is setting his sights on Twitter instead of, say, the fact that the U.N. Human Rights Council includes several of the worst human rights abusers on the planet. There are around 50 million people living in slavery around the world, according to the U.N., and many of them are in countries that sit on its human rights council. From China’s genocide in Xinjiang to Iran’s execution of protesters, there should be a lot on Turk’s plate. None of it has to do with Twitter suspending six journalists for a day because they were supposedly giving out Musk’s real-time location.
Complaining about Twitter is a lot easier than reckoning with the fact that the organization you work for is corrupt — that it actively promotes human rights abusers and puts their authoritarian regimes in positions of power over others. The U.N. treats human rights like a joke, and Turk evidently has no interest in changing that.
