Twitter’s debate-chilling problem: The social media site’s arbitrary policies

Twitter’s debate-chilling problem: The social media site’s arbitrary policies allow foreign nations to censor American — often without explanation

I am the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, whose account Twitter locked because it tweeted a link to a Daily News article that I wrote about Twitter locking my personal account. Twitter informs me that the account was locked because the News article contains quotes from the New Zealand mass killer, and New Zealand and Australia have laws against sharing the manifestos of shooters.

As a Twitter representative emailed me: “Due to the safety of Twitter users and regulations abroad, Twitter does not allow linking to content that includes excerpts of manifestos of mass shooters.” Earlier automated responses from Twitter had offered no such information, with the explanation field left blank. I was able to use a connection to ask what was happening, but other victims of Twitter’s censorship may not even get an explanation.

I can't speak to twitter, but I do have a bone to pick with Facebook. In particular there are two advertisements for products on Facebook that I have used their “report” feature and found the product advertisements to again pop up on my computer.

You see the problem is that both products being advertised are illegal to sell in this and other states. I have tried repeatedly to explain why the Facebook advertisements need to be banned, but the choices I am given, hate speech, violence, violation of intellectual property, etc. are so limited, that I have to check “other.” There is absolutely no way to provide details such as which specific state statues these products violate.

Facebook says it will evaluate the report and consult with the vendor, but they have no way of knowing why I am truly objecting to the advertisement because their reporting policy is so narrowly focused. I have read that their reporting policy is handled by an AI algorithm, which further makes me wonder about “fairness.”

I have even written to Facebook (never heard back) that they are aiding and abetting criminal activity.

I guess my next step is to contact the State's Attorney General’s office asking him to look into the criminal entity also known as FACEBOOK.

Any foreign country can create a law and Twitter will sensor content based on that?

Imagine the possibilities.

Yeah they got it backwards of course. They should block countries that ban free speech, not let free-speech banning countries dictate what free people can say.

But that’s all BS. It’s not about freedom or New Zealand it’s about controlling the conversation.

CDA/230: “open platform”.

All the Federal government need do is require open platforming or revoke liability protection (retroactively).

They will not, for the fix is in.

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