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Twitter, Milo Yiannopoulos and the battle over online free speech

I´m more than aware of the fact that Twitter is well-known for being very PC-Bro and SJW friendly, and I´ve seen plenty of Twitter battles of my own to know that Twitter is biased to the max. Even so, I still raised an eyebrow when I read Twitter´s “Fighting abuse to protect freedom of expression” blog post on the 30th of December last year. Because the post made me think about what Zoé Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian said at the U.N house last year. Well, at least the post sounded very similar to the agenda that Quinn and Sarkeesian were pushing during their U.N visit (more safe spaces, censorship and shut downs of people who have the wrong opinions). You don´t have to take my word for it though, just take a look at the text for yourself (it´s not the full post, click the link by the end of the quote to read the whole thing):

“We believe that protection from abuse and harassment is a vital part of empowering people to freely express themselves on Twitter. Keeping users safe requires a comprehensive and balanced approach where everyone plays a role. We will continue to build on these initiatives to empower our users and ensure that Twitter remains a platform for people to express themselves.” – Twitter

And one would think that Twitter couldn´t possibly get much worse in just a matter of weeks. Well, that´s exactly what happened. As Milo Yiannopoulos (a British journalist and entrepreneur) got caught in Twitter´s policy rules filter yesterday. To be exact, Twitter stripped Milo Yiannopoulos of his Twitter verification badge. And it seems like Twitter gave Milo the red card because he broke some of Twitter´s policy rules (most likely the part that concerns harassment). However, according to Yiannopoulos Twitter made their decision based on his politic views and opinions. It´s also worth mentioning that Yiannopoulos got suspended from Twitter on the 26th of December last year (for a short period of time). So it´s quite obvious that Twitter doesn’t like Yiannopoulos political stand points all that much.

Catrin Cooper, Holly Wood and Michael Margolis Vs Milo Yiannopoulos

Nevertheless, that´s not how everything started in the case with Milo Vs Twitter. At least not from my point of view. As it seems like Catrin Cooper (a feminist Twitter user) and Holly Wood (a radical feminist Twitter user) had Michael Margolis (Engineering Manager at @twitter) to repport Yiannopoulos for his “behavior” on Twitter (that “might” have been the main reason behind why Yiannopoulos lost his Twitter verification badge). And keep in mind that this is not the first time that SJWs and radical feminists gets their will through, just take Leigh Alexander for example. Because when Alexander got suspended from Twitter back in November last year (she broke Twitter´s harassment rules), Twitter let her off their hook just like that.

And I find this to be rather alarming since Twitter´s own rules don’t seem to apply to everyone (SJWs, PC-bros and radical feminists have a special “out of jail/pass go” Twitter card). Especially since certain loud minority groups (SJWs and so on) won´t hesitate one moment to use this privilege against those who they don´t agree with politically. In my opinion, It´s all about destroying opposing views with the help of safe spaces. And sites such as Reddit, Facebook and Twitter sure loves their safe spaces a whole lot. So much so that their willing to sacrifice freedom of speech in order to make their safe spaces bullet proof (until reality kicks in that is, like in the case with Reddit and Ellen Pao).

The Milo Yiannopoulos Vs Twitter aftermath

All of this came with a price though, a price, which might cost Twitter dearly in the end. Because once it became publicly known how Twitter had treated Milo Yiannopoulos, people started to call Twitter out on their most recent nonsense decisions:

And quite frankly, I believe that there is more to this then reaches the eye. Because I believe that Yiannopoulos has become too popular and influential for Twitter (Milo´s Twitter account has grown like crazy in a very short period of time). In short, Milo has become a huge fly in Twitter´s soup. And they don´t like that (thus everything thing that has gone down as of lately with Milo´s Twitter account). So I bet that Milo (and other similar Twitter accounts) will run into trouble with Twitter again in the near future. And I have a off-topic question for you guys and girls (since I´m not American). What´s the deal with San Fransicso? Seriously? I mean, the whole city seems to be a SJW magnet nowadays (Twitter, Tim Schafer with many more roams in the city of San Fransicso).

I also thought of another thing, since Twitter seems to become more and more extreme when it comes to “safe spaces” and “political correctness“. I´m quite certain that the next step will be to suspend people who favor and follow the “wrong” people on Twitter (you can get suspended for RT´s, tweets and PM´s as of now). And that makes me somewhat nervous, as we have been very political incorrect since day one on Twitter. What I’m trying to say is that we might end up in a situation, where Twitter will force us to remove certain tweet´s, RT´s and favors from our Twitter account. And if we don´t do as we´re told, then we could end up getting suspended from Twitter (maybe for good?). I don´t know about you, but I sure don´t like the thought of that. Especially not since it has taken quite a lot of time and hard work to reach almost 50,000 (real) followers on Twitter.

You know, If I didn´t know any better, then I would say that Twitter is slowly slitting their own throat…With that said, what´s your take on this matter? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section down below!

Source:

buzzfeed

mediaite

Catrin Cooper and Michael Margolis conversation

Fighting abuse to protect freedom of expression (Twitter)

***Disclaimer***

This is a personal opinion of the writer, and it doesn’t necessarily represent the other writers (nor The Gaming Ground´s) opinions.



Robin “V-Act” Ek

The Gaming Ground

Twitter: @TheGamingGround

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Tags: Freedom of speech, Milo Yiannopoulos, Safe spaces, SJW, Twitter