{"id":216,"date":"2017-04-03T10:00:50","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T17:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/?p=216"},"modified":"2017-04-03T14:21:29","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T21:21:29","slug":"twitters-censorship-tools-good-news-or-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/twitters-censorship-tools-good-news-or-bad-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter’s Censorship Tools: Good News Or Bad Idea?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Twitter has had its ups and downs over the last few years. Its growth has leveled off (but they still maintain over 300 million active users). Lots of celebrities and even the current U.S. president have achieved notoriety with their tweets. Throughout its history, however, Twitter has been considered one of the most open and transparent social media sites. This may be changing as the social media site is now implementing policies that restrict certain words, topics and accounts.
\n
\nThe justification for these policies is to protect users. It\u2019s still not clear exactly what form this censorship will take and Twitter itself is being fairly vague about it. Any type of limits of free speech on Twitter, however, is sure to create a great deal of controversy. Let\u2019s look at how Twitter may be restricting certain speech and what effect this is likely to have for users and for society in general.<\/p>\n

What is Twitter Censoring?<\/strong><\/p>\n

While social media is widely considered to be an open forum for all points of view, there have always been certain restrictions. Threats, harassment and support of terrorism, for example, are suppressed by Twitter and other social media sites. For example, Twitter has shut down many accounts associated with terrorism<\/a>. This type of action is fairly uncontroversial and is seldom labeled censorship. It\u2019s a version of the old argument that free speech doesn\u2019t permit you to yell \u201cfire\u201d in a crowded building when there\u2019s no fire. But now Twitter appears to be restricting a wider range of online behavior.<\/p>\n

Twitter, along with other social media sites, has long discussed implementing a hate-speech filter. \u201cHate speech,\u201d of course, is not a precise term and so far the company hasn\u2019t provided specific details on how it defines this term. The latest policy involves suspending people who violate its acceptable speech policy for a half day. Even this doesn\u2019t prevent people from using the platform. It only restricts visibility of tweets to one\u2019s followers. This, on the surface, may not seem overly draconian. The problem is that once this type of policy is in place, there\u2019s no telling how widely or arbitrarily it will be enforced.<\/p>\n

Limits on Search<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to banning certain accounts, Twitter is also placing restrictions on its search function. This is a more subtle type of restriction, one that doesn\u2019t directly prohibit free speech. Rather, it limits the public\u2019s ability to find certain content. Of course, the result is the same. If no one sees a tweet, what\u2019s the point? Twitter is also restricting words that have nothing to do with hate speech.<\/p>\n

As U.S. News reports, Twitter is currently filtering words related to marijuana<\/a>, such as \u201cpot,\u201d \u201cweed\u201d and \u201ccannabis.\u201d During a time when marijuana legalization is an issue in many states, it seems strange that the social network would restrict people from looking up such information. Technically, Twitter isn\u2019t censoring posts containing these words. Users can opt out of the default filter and see these posts. However, it\u2019s safe to say that many, if not most users won\u2019t bother to do this.<\/p>\n

Is Twitter Censoring Political Tweets?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s not only hate speech and drug-related posts that are causing controversy for Twitter. One of its purported aims is to limit \u201clow quality\u201d tweets, which is a term even more vague than hate speech. According to some reports, the social media site is applying this standard in a politically biased manner. For example, some users claim that Twitter is censoring posts in support of President Trump and giving free reign to tweets critical of him. Twitter has suspended the accounts of several members of the alt-right<\/a>, including Richard Spencer, founder of the controversial National Policy Institute and Milo Yiannopolous, editor of Breitbart News.<\/p>\n

What are the Effects of Twitter Censorship?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Twitter\u2019s policies are fairly uncertain right now and are likely to change over the next months and years. The company, however, seems to be moving in the direction of more restriction, if not censorship. The criteria it\u2019s using are not clear. Conservatives, of course, are claiming that the social media site is biased in favor of the left. On the other hand, restricting discussion of pot legalization is more of a liberal issue. It appears that the company is trying to restrict anything that\u2019s controversial.For example, Heatstreet reports<\/a> that Twitter is blocking terms such as \u201cporn,\u201d \u201csex\u201d and kink.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Twitter is a private company, it has the right to allow or suppress anything it wants. It\u2019s not literally censorship if a magazine refuses to publish an article or letter-to-the-editor. Similarly, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter are free to choose their own policies and restrictions. However, in practice, very large social media sites have a great deal of power. Banning a Twitter account or even restricting searches, even if it falls short of the legal definition of censorship, does seriously limit the public\u2019s access to certain views.<\/p>\n

The overall effect of this type of policy is likely to make mainstream social media sites more bland and mainstream, with less popular views marginalized. There are some potential problems with this type of policy. For one thing, it\u2019s likely to make society even more polarized than it is now. People whose accounts are banned and their followers, unable to express themselves on Twitter, are more likely to move even further to the fringes.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the more fundamental point that when a major media outlet restricts any type of speech, the net effect is less freedom. Kalev Leetaru, in an article on Forbes.com, calls this a \u201cPandora\u2019s Box<\/a>\u201d that threatens the very existence of free speech. The problem with limiting certain terms or topics is that it\u2019s always difficult to know where to draw the line. Adding to the problem is that Twitter is not at all transparent about its policies. This means that, at least for now, the company is exercising editorial privilege on a case-by-case basis. Without knowing the rules, it\u2019s hard for people to abide by them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter has had its ups and downs over the last few years. Its growth has leveled off (but they still maintain over 300 million active users). Lots of celebrities and even the current U.S. president have achieved notoriety with their tweets. Throughout its history, however, Twitter has been considered one of the most open and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p82Top-3u","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221,"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clicktotweet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}