Not satisfied with suppressing the free speech of millions, Twitter is expanding the power of its faceless censors to seek out and silence dehumanizing language.
From their post:
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For the last three months, we have been developing a new policy to address dehumanizing language on Twitter. Language that makes someone less than human can have repercussions off the service, including normalizing serious violence. Some of this content falls within our hateful conduct policy (which prohibits the promotion of violence against or direct attacks or threats against other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease), but there are still Tweets many people consider to be abusive, even when they do not break our rules. Better addressing this gap is part of our work to serve a healthy public conversation.With this change, we want to expand our hateful conduct policy to include content that dehumanizes others based on their membership in an identifiable group, even when the material does not include a direct target. Many scholars have examined the relationship between dehumanization and violence. For example, Susan Benesch has described dehumanizing language as a hallmark of dangerous speech, because it can make violence seem acceptable, and Herbert Kelman has posited that dehumanization can reduce the strength of restraining forces against violence.
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Let’s be clear: I don’t tweet, re-tweet or otherwise amplify any of the conduct that is now or would be in the future, forbidden as “dehumanizing language.”
At the same time, it is every user’s right to determine for themselves what content, harmful and/or dehumanizing, they wish to say or view.
Trivially easy for Twitter to implement filters that users could “follow” in order to avoid either harmful or dehumanizing speech, tuned to their specific choices. The same is true for followable block list of users known to spew such nonsense.
For reasons unknown to me, Twitter and its fellow travelers want to police the “public conversation.” So that its nameless and faceless censors can shape the public conversation.
Twitter censorship favors the same values I do, but even so, I find it objectionable in all respects.
If you know anyone working at Twitter, challenge them to empower users with followable content filters and block lists.
I have and all I get is silence in response.
PS: If you are interested in feminist power analysis, silence is the response of the privileged when challenged. They don’t even have to acknowledge your argument or produce facts. Just silence. Maybe I should write a post: Twitter and Patterns of Privilege. What do you think?