Don’t you think?
Within an hour of Wednesday’s Insight article, in which I defended Twitter’s right to suspend users from their platform, I found myself banned from Twitter. There were probably plenty of good reasons to ban me from Twitter…
… but none of them did it. This is the email I received from Twitter on Wednesday morning:
Making as much sense as hieroglyphics, I emailed Twitter to appeal the suspension and request specific examples of when I had engaged in “platform manipulation and spam.”
I’m not alone in receiving this email and, based on conversations with other less notorious former-tweeters, it would appear to be the standard message given to the 70,000 accounts purged by the social media giant since the infamous Capitol Building riots that saw @realDonaldTrump’s tragedy grow into a statistic.
“The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.”
– Joseph Stalin
I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the subsequent support I’ve received. I’ve been more surprised that anybody noticed. I’ve added the highlights below starting with the NZ Herald that ran a reasonable, if short, piece:
Twitter crackdown reaches NZ: Hundreds of NZ right-wing users kicked off Twitter.
Twitter has suspended the accounts of what appear to be hundreds of New Zealand-based users – many of whom frequently voiced right-wing New Zealand political opinions.
Among the purge is former Act candidate Stephen Berry and a number of other tweeters, many consider to be controversial.
Twitter said in a recent blog post that it removed the accounts to: “protect the conversation on our service from attempts to incite violence, organise attacks, and share deliberately misleading information about the election outcome”.
Many of the suspended accounts from the US had posted conspiracy theories after the riots.
At this stage, Twitter has not explicitly said why the New Zealand accounts were taken down. Visiting the profiles of the accounts shows a message saying the account had been suspended.
But in a statement, Twitter said: “Given the violent events in Washington, DC, and increased risk of harm, we began permanently suspending thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon.”
The common theme with many of the now purged New Zealand accounts was the vast majority of them were right-wing.
Berry – who has run as an Act Party candidate a number of times – said he did not approve of what Twitter was doing.
But he said Twitter owns the platform and has the right to do as it wishes, even if it’s something he disagrees with.
“But just because you have the right to be a dick, doesn’t mean you have to be one.”
The Twitter purge of mainly right-wing voices is already having a backlash, he said.
For example, many former users have flocked to other platforms and Twitter’s share price has been hit.
Berry was seen as a controversial figure on Twitter by many, as were many of the other accounts that have been suspended, such as the Redbaiternz and Damien de Ment.
“NZ right-wingers caught up in global purge of Twitter accounts” said The Spinoff.
Several prominent Twitter users on the fringe of right-wing politics in New Zealand have had their accounts suspended amid a wider clampdown by the social media giant.
Twitter has suspended the accounts of several prominent members of the right-wing fringe of New Zealand politics, amid a broader crackdown following last week’s US Capitol riot.
The list included some household names for the extremely online, including the pseudonym-using DemocracyMum and Redbaiter – two personalities who have been posting on a range of forums for more than a decade.
Among users who posted under their real names, the list included conspiracy theorist Vinny Eastwood, who was paid to promote the Advance NZ party during the election campaign, former Act party board member and candidate Stephen Berry, and prominent NZ-based Trump supporter Damien De Ment.
Newsroom’s Marc Daalder presented a predictable hatchet job:
NZ far-right Twitter accounts suspended
The accounts of a number of New Zealand-based far-right and QAnon activists were removed on Wednesday morning. Some were low profile accounts, like the @QNarrative one belonging to amateur cartoonist Ted Charlton or QAnon YouTuber Sarah Smith’s ‘Sarah Speaks’ account. Others served some of New Zealand’s most popular far-right YouTubers, like Damien de Ment and Vinny Eastwood.
Former ACT Party candidate Stephen Berry also had his account suspended on Wednesday.
The YouTube and Facebook accounts of many of these far-right activists remain online.
I have emailed Newsroom demanding they publish a clarification of that article as its implication that I am a “far-right activist” is borderline defamatory.
Few agree with my view that this is a property rights and freedom of association debate, not a free speech debate. Even stalwarts from New Zealand’s tiny liberty movement of the past argue this is a free speech issue because Twitter and Facebook receive protection from the US Government to act as a public square and their coffers are increasingly filled with taxpayer dollars for providing services to various government agencies including the Pentagon.
The true boundaries of the state, from the libertarian perspective, are those functions which are essential to the defence of individual liberty, private property rights and free association. Of course, these boundaries have been crossed, scuffed and defecated upon by big business and big government.
Facebook has donated $698,304 to 89 different Congressmen and Senators between 2014 and 2018. Politicians have power. Facebook has money. On the flipside, Senator Ted Cruz has not received donations from Facebook since a $7500 donation during the 2012 campaign and he has sought to present himself as a fighter for free speech against social media companies. He’s not fighting for free speech; he is prioritising his own ideological biases above free association and property rights.
It is wrong that big money is being used to buy politicians and entrench capitalist cronyism. It is the result of politicians having a product to sell (political influence). The constitutional limits imposed on the state by the founding fathers are in tatters. That is the problem; everything else is simply symptomatic. Framing the de-platforming debate as a free speech issue because tech companies buy influence and the government buys some of their services just deepens the swamp. It is akin to introducing Loan to Value ratios in the housing market to slow price rises caused by regulatory imposed supply shortages.
One could argue the banning of Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern from Auckland Council venues or the banning of Don Brash from Massey University are also property rights issues. They’re not. The purpose of Auckland Council venues is hireage by performers and are operated on behalf of ratepayers. Massey University’s funding is primarily from the taxpayer for the purpose of subsidising the cost of education to students. The Bill of Rights prohibits government agencies from discriminating on the basis of political belief.
NZ Privacy Commissioner John Edwards is critical of bans being applied against some social media platform users. His concern isn’t over whether the bans are deserved, rather that “online justice is being divvied out by private companies….rather than regulators.” He tweeted on Saturday 9 January, “The Twitter and Facebook bans are arbitrary, cynical, unprincipled and further evidence that regulation of social media platforms is urgently required. Much worse has been allowed, and is still present on both platforms than the precipitating posts.”
True but that doesn’t mean this power should therefore be assumed by the state! Private companies do make poor, inconsistent and biased determinations about what speech is acceptable and what isn’t. The results can be disproportionate, slow or unfair. The state will not improve on this situation. The state will be directed by politicians with the power to impose penalties far more severe than simply banning an individual from using a social media platform. Their regulatory tools will be as subjective, tyrannical and unjust as Twitter but the state’s jail really is jail.
Is there a happy ending on the horizon? Yes.
- Twitter has lost $5 billion in market value since Trump was barred from the platform
- Gab is currently adding almost a million people per day, while Gab traffic is adding millions every few hours. It claims to be the fastest growing website in the history of the internet.
- Parler is temporarily down after being blocked by the Google and Apple app stores. It is currently building the required infrastructure to support itself independently.
- Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web thirty years ago. In disgust at the behaviour of the dominant players and violation of privacy, he is developing new technology to flip the balance of power back in favour of internet users. It may be as revolutionary as the iPhone was for smartphone apps.
Is the Government the solution? No.
- Breaking up the tech monopolies using anti-trust lawsuits will take years of litigation and appeals while elected officials funded by the subjects the legal action are not going to be reliable.
- Regulators cannot hope to keep up with this rapidly adapting industry. In 1998 the Department of Justice sued Microsoft for monopolising the market, as a result of its causing the collapse of competitor Netscape by giving away its own operating software for free. Up to 95% of PCs powered by Intel processors were using a Microsoft operating system. As a judge ordered the breakup of Microsoft (overturned by the Court of Appeal), Apple and other competitors released new products which diminished Microsoft’s dominance without state intervention.
- The market already contains an overwhelming demand for free speech platforms today. Consumers aren’t waiting for the government to determine what speech may and may not be excluded by social media companies. Even new entrants, shut down by existing companies removing access to their servers, can rapidly raise capital to build their own infrastructure in a market desperate for alternatives.
The behaviour of the biggest tech companies in general has been arrogant. The behaviour of Twitter in particular has been appalling. However, thousands of years of human progress has given me the certainty that personal and economic freedom will deal justice to the tech giants swiftly, decisively and properly long before politicians try, then fail.