{"id":90417,"date":"2016-03-20T09:26:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T17:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=90417"},"modified":"2016-03-20T09:26:38","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T17:26:38","slug":"jack-dorsey-youre-a-liar-censorship-is-rampant-on-twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=90417","title":{"rendered":"Jack Dorsey: You\u2019re A Liar. Censorship Is Rampant On Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Milo writes<\/a>: In Shakespearean times, cuckolds were referred to as \u201che who has horns\u201d \u2014 an issue everyone else can see, that\u2019s not obvious to them. Everyone else sees his shame immediately, but the cuckold can only tell by looking closely in a mirror. Perhaps the same is true for censors, who insist that they adore free speech while mercilessly trampling it at the slightest opportunity.<\/p>\n

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, whom I wouldn’t even right-swipe on Grindr (ironically one of the few social platforms left without Orwellian speech suppression), recently made a visit to The Today Show<\/em> where he firmly proclaimed that his site doesn\u2019t censor its users.<\/a> Dorsey made his extraordinary statement following Matt Lauer\u2019s claim that his Twitter followers named censorship as one of the most important issues facing the social media platform.<\/p>\n

Jack is the CEO of two companies, and bad at running both, but Twitter has really been the worst of his two failures. Imagine taking a company from the “free speech wing of the free speech party” to shadowbanning, politically motivated de-verifications and banning “problematic” accounts (usually conservative or libertarian).<\/p>\n

Since Dorsey returned to the company that he considers his “first born son,”<\/a> the site has transformed from the public’s megaphone into the public’s muzzle. He’s calmly drowning free speech in the bathtub while adding unwanted features like algorithmic timelines and sponsored tweets.<\/p>\n

Dorsey, who once was fired from his role as Twitter\u2019s chief executive for an obsession with hot yoga and shirt-making,<\/a> noted that Twitter only censors speech that \u201cpromotes violence.” Of course, this fails to explain my own unverification, Twitter’s rampant shadow-banning, and the suspension of Adam Baldwin over innocuous tweets that were interpreted as insults by easily-offended snowflakes.<\/a> It seems Dorsey weaves fibs and half-truths as enthusiastically as he weaves straight-cut hemp outerwear.<\/p>\n

Verified Twitter accounts are given to significant individuals (like me) who are likely to be impersonated on the platform. I’m probably the most impersonated person on the internet who isn’t Beyonc\u00e9. The blue check society is a club to which I once belonged, but since Twitter has revealed its willingness to censor and \u201cshawdow-ban,”<\/a> it\u2019s a club I’m a lot less interested in rejoining.<\/p>\n

If Dorsey won\u2019t address his platform’s blatant bias, he might one day have to answer to the courts. On March 4, I asked White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest about the role that President Obama might play in reminding social media platforms about the importance of protecting free expression.<\/a><\/p>\n

Earnest made it clear the President believes that the success of social media platforms is \u201cpredicated on the important protection of First Amendment rights to self-expression.\u201d He also recommended that Twitter users who feel aggrieved by the platform’s policies should turn to lawsuits as a response. I’m betting that’s a future the site’s investors, already worried by the company’s tanking stock value,<\/a> would want to avoid.<\/p>\n