OPINION:
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey swears by his mother’s right hand, or something to that effect, that his social media empire does not lean left when it comes to purposely blocking conservatives while letting flow unhindered the thoughts of liberal posters.
Yet a tweet that spoke in reverent tones of the need to murder the children of Dana Loesch, spokeswoman for the National Rifle Association, was A-OK to stay.
Here’s the murder message, clear as a bell, from user Milan Legius, as screen-grabbed and posted by Mediaite: “The only way these people learn is if it affects them directly. So if Dana Loesch has to have her children murdered before she’ll understand, I guess that’s what needs to happen.”
Pining for the murder of young children doesn’t violate Twitter rules? Apparently not.
Twitter, upon receiving a report of the message, initially ruled “that there was no violation of the Twitter Rules against abusive behavior,” as Mediaite noted.
But then the Daily Caller got a hold of the story, and ran with it.
Suddenly, in the face of massive backlash and public pressure, the tweet was deemed offensive and the user’s account was suspended.
As husband Chris Loesch told Mediaite, “Somehow after we went public, they suddenly decided to suspend an account.”
But Twitter also made clear the “account will be unlocked” if and when “the account owner complies with our requested actions and stated polices.” And guess what?
Within 48 hours, that same account that suggested a need to murder the Loesch family kids, was up and running, unlocked by Twitter’s team of censors.
This all comes, of course, on the heels of Twitter’s widely reported suspension of Infowars’ Alex Jones and the company’s subsequent commitment to crack down on deemed “hate speech.” But lookie here: Jones was suspended for a week for his so-called “abusive” posts — posts that more to truth, were simply politically charged.
Loesch’s murderous-minded?
Locked out of Twitter for 48 hours or so.
This is why Americans, particularly of conservative bent, are more and more souring on social media. If we can’t even agree that posts that are wishful of murder on another are “abusive” and contrary to Twitter’s rules, well then, we have a serious cultural clash in this country — one that lets liberals say whatever they want against conservatives simply for the reason they’re liberals and conservatives are well, you know, gasp, conservatives.
The conversation on government regulation of the tech and social media giants continues. But what’s needed in the immediate is for social media CEOs to step up to the plate and become more accountable to the people, more voluntarily transparent. And not that fake transparency, either.
Step one could be to answer emailed concerns from users with more than a maddeningly bland form letter that rarely addresses the actual point. Step one could perhaps also include some sort of grievance process that institutes a clearly delineated chain of command that complainers could appeal to and petition for redress. Step two?
Social media executives could make a conscious decision to train all workers to understand that expressions of murder are never acceptable — are always “abusive” — even when they’re made by liberals toward conservatives.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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