No one is immune or exempt from the tentacles of the US speech police, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell found out last weekend when his Twitter campaign account was frozen after his staff posted a video they deemed offensive.
“Twitter suspended the account of the re-election campaign of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for posting a profanity-laced video of protesters outside the Senate majority leader’s home..
What they’re saying: McConnell campaign manager Kevin Golden said in a statement issued to news outlets the Twitter account,“Team Mitch,” was locked “for posting the video of real-world, violent threats made against Mitch McConnell.”
“This is the problem with the speech police in America today. … Twitter will allow the words ‘Massacre Mitch’ to trend nationally on their platform. But locks our account for posting actual threats against us.”
— MCCONNELL CAMPAIGN MANAGER KEVIN GOLDEN STATEMENT
Twitter was unconcerned about posts saying “massacre Mitch” but they took down a video of Mitch McConnell protesters swearing about him. No prizes for guessing which political side these speech police are on!
Twitter unfroze McConnell’s Twitter account after numerous complaints when “multiple affected individuals, including McConnell’s staff” reached out to them. Good luck if you are nobody when the speech police shut you down.
The disciplinary action against the GOP leader ignited outrage among bastions of Twitter’s right-wing followers. Republicans agreed to boycott the social media platform by halting paid ad campaigns.
Rather than targeting the Kentucky lawmaker solely, Twitter also suspended the accounts of several others who posted the video in an effort to prevent it from spreading. Twitter initially offered to unsuspend McConnell if he simply deleted the offending video.
The company eventually decided to allow the video to remain on the site with a warning for sensitive media.
It has selectively applied such warnings in the past in cases when rule-breaking content is still in the public interest.
Engadget
What is concerning is Twitter freely demonstrating its political bias by selectively banning posts they don’t like. And who is going to stop them?
It’s politically advantageous to ban information and videos that you don’t agree with, and if your ‘public interest’ is not their ‘public interest’ you won’t stand a chance.
This is entirely the trouble with ‘hate speech’ enforcement in social media. It is not fair, simply because what one person regards as hateful, another does not. I sincerely hope our lone voice in parliament, David Seymour, is not thinking of going anywhere else, anytime soon.