Twitter’s disorders in moderation of content and policy implementation will grow as a result of its resolve to ban President Donald Trump from his platform, experts say.
The resolution, the culmination of years of tension, came on January 8, 2021, when the social network that was enough after the assault on the construction of the U. S. Capitol through Trump supporters two days earlier, silenced the president’s account in an attempt to restrict incitement to violence. Five other people died in the siege.
A wave of Trump allies was also eliminated, adding conspiracy attorney L. Lin Wood, former national security registry saver Michael Flynn and former Trump cross-counsel Sidney Powell, the last two suspended as part of a crackdown on QAnon content after spending weeks feeding states. that the outcome of the 2020 election is illegitimate.
While many applauded Trump’s ban on Twitter, contraarguments arose temporarily: the site kept the president at a different point than other world leaders; she was biased, hypocritical and tried to destroy free speech. while others were left alone.
Brian L. Ott, professor and director of the communication branch at Missouri State University, co-wrote an e-book called The Presidency of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and White Rage policy told Newsweek that “public pressure” is just one reason.
He said: “I like Twitter has taken time to deal with hate speech, violent content and incorrect information on its platform. The structural prejudices of the medium generate these dark and disturbing dimensions. The platform has ignored them for too long. “
“In my opinion, Twitter needs both,” the professor continued. “On the one hand, it should be noticed as a public square that promotes freedom of expression. On the other hand, it should be noticed as a personal company that does not know what to publish or not to publish. This tension is at the heart of existing discussions. “
It is not difficult to locate accusations that Twitter’s compliance policies are at their best inconsistent productivity or, at worst, inappropriate. One of the highest examples cited was published in 2018 through Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ideal leader, who described Israel as a “malignant cancerous tumor. “”that they are” removed and eradicated. “
The tweet remains in line with any of the precautionary tags or flags popularized through the social network as it sought to curb incorrect information in last year’s U. S. presidential election. Comments highlighting the obvious disparity now fill the answers.
And what is Twitter in this?
Twitter sometimes gives world leaders more freedom of action than general users because their updates are in the public interest, “clear and direct threats of violence” and the promotion of terrorism remain contrary to the site’s official policy.
In July last year, a Twitter spokesman reported that Khamenei’s message was “a foreign policy that broke the sword” that did not violate his policies, the Times of Israel reported.
A Twitter spokesman told Newsweek Friday via email: “We are tagging government accounts related to the United Nations Permanent Five and we will soon expand that. We have taken coercive action as opposed to world leaders before that. Our recent action [opposed to Trump] focuses in particular on the damage presented through this story. “
The permanent five of the United Nations Security Council is composed of the United States, China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom.
But it’s not just Iran. Twitter was forced to respond on January 8 to a tweet posted through the Chinese Embassy in the United States that said Uighur women in Xinjiang were “emancipated” and that physical education meant they were “no longer bathing machines. “
According to Ars Technica, it was previously considered that the Chinese government tweet had not violated any regulations through a spokesman, even though everything had been withdrawn.
The Associated Press (AP) has reported in the past that China’s attempt to restrict its Muslim population includes forced birth control, sterilization and abortion. It has been documented that China retains up to one million Uighurs in “re-education camps”.
After Trump’s suspension, the Jerusalem Post reported on January 12 that a Jewish civil rights motion from the base was filed at the California home of Twitter chief Jack Dorsey the day before, armed with audio recordings of tweets containing Holocaust denial, asking what it was about. . To deny the COVID-19 pandemic.
As reported through The Atlantic on January 9, the Taliban’s official spokesman had access to a Twitter account, as did Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the arguable Brazilian pro-Trump president Jair Bolsonaro.
Dia Kayyali, Mnemonic’s associate director of defense, who specializes in the genuine effect on content moderation policies, told Newsweek that all US-based social mediaBut it’s not the first time They’ve “crossed a thin line” in terms of sanctions.
They said there is “clearly a double standard” in how Twitter moderates the PRESIDENT of the United States over other world leaders, with regulation being a factor.
“On the one hand, Twitter needs to avoid regulations that they believe are bad for their business interests, so there are smart reasons for them, for example, to wait until Trump is almost out of work to nevertheless take action. “Array said Kayyali.
“While Trump has obviously taken matters even more than before, he has obviously spread a lot of destructive misinformation during his tenure as president. Twitter has been, to put it mildly, slow to act.
“On the other hand, commercial interests are largely based on taking AMERICA’s interests seriously. USA, so [Twitter] is investing more resources in content moderation in the US. But it’s not the first time It cannot fail to emphasize that this is due to the attention of the media. U. S. media will pay attention to situations like Myanmar, corporations are suddenly more motivated to act. “
Ott echoed the confidence that Twitter has a “US-centric bias,” which is part of the explanation for why it is focusing more on American politics right now.
“That said, much of the fear about Twitter’s obvious inconsistencies in managing world leaders comes from conservatives who are not satisfied with Trump’s ban. Part of this outrage is fabricated, it’s a fake scandal, designed only to earn political points,” the professor told Newsweek.
“I would deal skepticly with the voices that are suddenly wrapped in how other world leaders are treated. This seems to me to be true of conservative voices raising objections based on freedom of expression, since the First Amendment does not apply to moderation. “content is a personal enterprise,” Ott added.
There is no indication that Twitter is taking action against destructive actors to exploit its systems and, in the afterlife, has dismantled massive state-backed propaganda operations connected to China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Shagun Jhaver, postdoctoral researcher at the Paul G School of Computer Science. Allen
He said: “Users with MaximumArray tags . . . tended to be Americans. Non-unusual maximum labels on incorrect voter information in the United States. I hope Twitter will use those tags to counteract incorrect information about a wider range of disorders and countries. “
Jhaver added: “One of my most demanding situations in this job leadership is that there is no publicly available list of all users that Twitter has banned. This lack of transparency makes it very difficult to assess. platform movements. For example, we do. I don’t know if Twitter constantly prohibits public figures from other countries from posting degrees of offensive content or misinformation. “
This week, Twitter boss Jack Dorsey seemed well aware that the movements on his online page will have consequences, this is the “right resolution” for the platform. He stated that the resolution sets a potentially damaging precedent in terms of “the strength that an individual or society has more than one component of the global public conversation. “
He tweeted: “This moment in time demands this dynamic, but in the long run it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open Internet. “
Then Trump left. In less than a week, the United States will have a new president at Joe Biden and a new vice president at Kamala Harris, but the experts have been very clear: Twitter’s disorders are about to be resolved.
Dr. Ott said: “Twitter will most likely take a closer look at the undemocratic purposes for which its platform is used. Overall, this is a smart and highly anticipated thing. Twitter has behaved absolutely without realizing what’s on its platform. “
You’ve got four loose pieces left this month.
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