Semantics
One of the boys sent me this video, how Twitter decides who to ban.
It’s 3 minutes, watch here:
The sketch features new Twitter “employees” getting trained to start work in the “Terms of Service” department, examining tweets to ban or not.
“It’s called ‘nuance,’ you’ll get it”
An exchange about whether or not to delete Putin’s account, goes something like this:
Ban this user, who promotes war crimes and murders innocent citizens?
No, no, Twitter supports the powerful, not the powerless.
Wait, didn’t you ban Trump?
Yeah, after he was a lame duck. Get it? No power.
The seemingly sane new employee goes on to protest that she knows “Twitter is a private company …” and it’s one of the largest communication platforms; Twitter “can’t just silence half the country because you don’t like the way they think.” Bless.
In actuality, Twitter is a public company. TWTR has been trading on the NY Stock Exchange since 2014. So what was the actress referencing? This week Elon Musk called out the platform for “failing [to] adhere to free speech principles, fundamentally undermines democracy.” Twitter terms outline “You may not threaten violence against an individual or group of people … You may not threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism.” Except for repressed groups, of course, as satirically called out in this clip.
Jack Dorsey, who cofounder Twitter in 2006, was replaced as CEO late last year by Parag Agrawal, the company’s former Chief Technology Officer. I was shocked with this pick, as Mr. Agrawal told the Technology Review in 2020, “Our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve as healthy public conversation and our moves are reflective of the things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation.” Wait, what?
Remember when Twitter used to call itself “the free speech wing of the feee speech party”?
Hypocricy? Grey area, of course.