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Twitter’s latest censorship controversy
May 7, 2019 in history | Tags: 2017, 2019, censorship, history, social media, Twitter, United States | Comments closed
Wow.
Twitter just banned a parody account which clearly stated it was a parody account.
Not only that, Twitter banned the account of the person who created said parody account.
The parody account’s creator belongs to a minority religious faith. He happens to be a conservative.
His ban is not a suspension.
It is a permanent ban from Twitter.
Here’s the story via another prominent Twitter conservative:
— Carpe Donktum🔹 (@CarpeDonktum) May 7, 2019
I just spoke with @OfficeOfMike, and this is a PERMANENT BAN.
He also told me that 3 other prominent Jewish accounts were also banned tonight.
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON @Twitter?
Have you gone full blown Nazi?
— Carpe Donktum🔹 (@CarpeDonktum) May 7, 2019
What's up @jack? pic.twitter.com/s8BLv51a0g
— MAGA RƎVO⅃UTION 🇺🇸 (@Sheep2Wolves) May 7, 2019
So, it’s okay to have multiple parody accounts of President Trump, but not one of a freshman congresswoman?
Mike Morrison’s parody tweets were so clever, they seemed like the real thing. That tells one a lot about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Human Events spoke with Morrison, who said (emphases mine):
I think Twitter banned AOC Press for the increasing amounts of attention it’s been receiving lately.
In the past month and a half alone the account grew by roughly 50,000 followers. We’ve had tweets with over 30,000 likes on them, so I think Twitter decided it was time for [the account] to go. They didn’t like how popular an account created by their political opposition had become.
There might have been a different factor at play in Morrison’s personal account having been banned:
As the creator of the parody, Morrison presumes his personal account was banned by Twitter for having mocked their political allies, though many on the service have pointed to Morrison’s Jewish background and the fact he had also tweeted critically of Hamas in recent days.
Other prominent Jewish conservatives were also banned after tweeting about how terror group Hamas should be destroyed.
Overall, however, bans have also gone on at other social media sites:
The ban is the latest foray by Big Tech into the Presidential Election campaign of 2020.
Last week, high profile Trump supporters such as Alex Jones, Paul Joseph Watson, Laura Loomer, and Milo Yiannopolous were banned from Facebook and Instagram.
Morrison is also MAGA.
Message to Jack Dorsey: UNBAN MIKE.
Jack might be interested in studying the 2017 Supreme Court ruling that says participating in social media is a constitutional right, even for convicts:
The US Supreme Court just ruled that using social media is a constitutional right https://t.co/VobIxgqKDd via @qz
— Amy (@RightHookUSA) May 6, 2019
Quartz has a good article on the ruling. Excerpts follow about Packingham v. North Carolina:
Public space in the digital age has no shape and no physical place. But the US Supreme Court is now sorting out what that means for free-speech rights. Today (June 19), the justices unanimously held that states can’t broadly limit access to social media because cyberspace “is one of the most important places to exchange views.”
… Acknowledging that every advance in technology leads to new abuses by criminals, the notion that states can bar access altogether is anathema to the high court …
As justice Elena Kagan put it then, “Everybody is on Twitter.”
Well, nearly everyone. The rest of us do read and enjoy Twitter.
With that 2017 Supreme Court ruling in mind, I hope that Twitter unbans Mike Morrison — and other conservatives — soon.