Alt-right suspensions lay bare Twitter’s consistency problem by Nausicaa Renner.
From the post:
TWITTER SUSPENDED A NUMBER OF ACCOUNTS associated with the alt-right, USA Today reported this morning. This move was bound to be divisive: While Twitter has banned and suspended users in the past (prominently, Milo Yiannopoulos for incitement), USA Today points out the company has never suspended so many at once—at least seven in this case. Richard Spencer, one of the suspended users and prominent alt-righter, also had a verified account on Twitter. He claims, “I, and a number of other people who have just got banned, weren’t even trolling.”
If this is true, it would be a powerful political statement, indeed. As David Frum notes in The Atlantic, “These suspensions seem motivated entirely by viewpoint, not by behavior.” Frum goes on to argue that a kingpin strategy on Twitter’s part will only strengthen the alt-right’s audience. But we may never know Twitter’s reasoning for suspending the accounts. Twitter declined to comment on its moves, citing privacy and security reasons.
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(emphasis in original)
Contrary to the claims of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to Twitter, these users may not have been suspended for violating Twitter’s terms of service, but for their viewpoints.
Like the CIA, FBI and NSA, Twitter uses secrecy to avoid accountability and transparency for its suspension process.
The secrecy – avoidance of accountability/transparency pattern is one you should commit to memory. It is quite common.
Twitter needs to develop better muting options for users and abandon account suspension (save on court order) altogether.