Twitter has suspended 235,000 accounts that promoted
terrorism over the past six months, according to news reports. The company said
this was part of an effort to prevent people from using the social network for
extremist causes. This brings the total number of accounts the company has
suspended to 360,000 in little over a year. (How many terrorists have Twitter accounts?!).
According
to the New York Times, Twitter is also attempting “to find a way to reconcile
its free speech stance with how women and minorities can be targeted on the
service,” by “bullies, racists and extremist groups.”
As a
public service I offer this general guideline for Twitter to follow: If any account
issues tweets in an attempt to plan, organize, promote, aid or abet the mass
murder of innocents- or “infidels”- these accounts are used by terrorists and
should be immediately shut down.
If
however, the tweets simply convey a strong disapproval of, say, gay marriage or
transgender bathrooms, with no threat of violence, this is called free speech
and is protected by the very First Amendment to the U.S Constitution. I offer
the following examples to help in clarification:
Example
Tweet I- “Who wants to help in the slaughter of dozens- hopefully hundreds!- of
gay boys and women, Jewish sons of pigs, and assorted other infidels? We will
make the streets of a major Southern city in the Great Satan flow red with the blood
of infidel mongrels! Please call: (555)-666-6969 and ask for Mohammed. Thank
you.” This is an example of a terrorist tweet/threat.
Example
Tweet II- “I simply do not believe that gay marriage should be considered as equally sacred as a union between a man and a woman, due to the obvious
difference in child bearing potential, etc. Also, I don’t believe men who claim
to identify as women should be allowed to use women’s bathrooms. I am not
comfortable with the thought of my young daughter using the same lavatory as an
older person with male genitalia.” This is an example of free speech.
It took
Twitter a long time to start “suspending” accounts such as that of example one.
I bet it won’t take them much longer to start suspending accounts such as
example two.
Such is
the state of our union- and the planet- circa 2016.
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