Twitter renser nettet

Twitter begyndte mandag at følge de nye retningslinjer, som siger, at deres konti ikke skal bruges til at sprede negative budskaber. Forbuddet rammer i første omgang det yderste højre – men hvor går grænsen?

Hvordan skal Twitter kunne vurdere det, når Twitter lige ud siger, at ytringsfriheden ikke længere er hellig:

A Twitter executive said Tuesday that it is “no longer possible to stand up for all speech,” just five years after a different executive described the company as the “free speech wing of the free speech party.”

Speaking before British politicians, Sinead McSweeney, Twitter’s European vice president for public policy and communications, purposefully acknowledged and addressed the change in tune.

“I look back over the last five-and-a-half years, and the answers I would have given to some of these questions five years ago were very different,” McSweeney said, according to Business Insider. “Twitter was in a place where it believed the most effective antidote to bad speech was good speech. It was very much a John Stuart Mill-style philosophy. We’ve realised the world we live in has changed.”

Det lød helt andre toner i 2012:

Tony Wang, then-general manager of Twitter’s operations in the U.K., expressed quite a different attitude in 2012 while explaining the company.

“Generally, we remain neutral as to the content because our general council [sic] and CEO like to say that we are the free speech wing of the free speech party,” he said.

Nå er firmaet vendt 180 grader:

Twitter announced Monday that it is getting even more strict with “hateful conduct and abusive behavior” on the platform by restructuring its policies to encompass more content.

“Specific threats of violence or wishing for serious physical harm, death, or disease to an individual or group of people,” for example, is and has been a violation of Twitter policies, but “new changes include more types of related content,” like “content that glorifies violence or the perpetrators of a violent act.” Additionally, accounts that are, in Twitter’s eyes, affiliated with organizations that use or promote violence are included in the crackdown.

Twitter påbegyndte udrensningen mandag:

Twitter began a massive purge of users on Monday the company claims violate its new terms of service.

As predicted, nearly every account that was banned by Twitter was affiliated with the alt-right or far right.

White nationalist Jared Taylor, his group American Renaissance, and Britain First leader Jayda Fransen, the woman who posted the “Islamophobic” videos famously retweeted by President Trump, were some of the entities that received the boot from Twitter.

The standard by which Twitter decided which users were no longer welcome seemed remarkably arbitrary, as noted by a few observers like right-wing watcher Will Sommer.

Men Twitter stiller sig godt an for hug: Chefen for Federal Communication Commission, FCC, hedder Ajit Pai. Han går til angreb på beslutningen om at ophæve netneutraliteten for leverandørerne.

Pai er udsat for en veritabel regn af hatespeech og racisme, og det kommer fra venstrefløjen.

But that seems to only be a problem Twitter cares about if it comes from the Right, as the example of Federal Communications chairman Ajit Pai proves.

Hundreds of left-wing users have recently taken to issuing death threats and other promises of violence to Pai over his decision to scrap net neutrality regulations.

Pai, an Indian-American, told The Daily Caller last week that he was shocked at the amount of racism he received on social media for his decision.

Læserne af Document er klar over, at der findes meget aggression på venstrefløjen. Mindst lige så meget, som på højrefløjen.

Men dét vil Twitter ikke se, de vil kun se med det højre øje og formår ikke at skille hveden fra avnerne.

Dailycaller.com giver nogle eksempler på hetzen mod Pai:

I fucking despise this fucking curry nigger @AjitPaiFCC Go back to India motherfucker https://t.co/cfGtmx5Eud

— USSR (@GlassPottato) December 16, 2017

@AjitPaiFCC I will kill you Ajit Pai you fucking nigger

— JK (@josdkoger) December 18, 2017

“I’m an Indian nigger, someone please assassinate me lol”. – @AjitPaiFCC2017 pic.twitter.com/ugrqYF88ri

— Rydro (@RydroOfficial) November 27, 2017

Disse konti skulle været taget ned, hvis Twitter var konsekvent. Men de er ikke fjernet. De er fortsat aktive.

Twitter har dermed et problem, også overfor myndighederne. Twitter kunne forsvare netneutralitet med, at de stod for ytringsfrihed. Men nu har de selv forladt princippet. Dermed kan internet-tilsynet sige, at argumentet ikke længere holder for at begrunde netneutralitet.

Det er en point Pai bruger:

Pai’s children have been threatened, his home address has been doxxed and tons of people are wanting to kill him because of the false notion he destroyed internet freedom. But Twitter does nothing to stop this dangerous rhetoric from continuing.

Maybe it has something to do with Pai calling Twitter out for its censorious policies. In speeches refuting accusations that net neutrality ensures free speech survives on the internet, the FCC chair made a point to highlight how Twitter, a big supporter of net neutrality, censors views on the Right and undermines its own claims of supporting free speech.

Twitter Exec Says It’s ‘No Longer Possible To Stand Up For All Speech’

Twitter Blocks The Alt-Right, Allows Racist Death Threats To Ajit Pai

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