Twitter isn’t removing hatred, it’s silencing dissent.

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism

One of the last things that David Horowitz was able to tweet before his account was locked was a link to an article, “How the Left is Outsourcing Censorship of the Internet.” The article described how the left is using tech companies to silence political dissent. Not long after, @horowitz39 was locked by Twitter.

The censorship tweet wasn’t what triggered Twitter. But it does describe the great crisis we all face.

Instead, David Horowitz was censored for tweeting, “But if you’re a Muslim, you might not want to be sworn in on a Judeo-Christian bible, since Islam has conducted a 1500 year war against Christians and Jews, is calling for death to Israel and has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Christians recently.”

That was in response to a user who had accused him of having a “Zionist agenda”. Instead of sanctioning a bigot who had engaged in shameless Jew-baiting, Twitter censored Horowitz for telling the truth.

Twitter accused David Horowitz of violating its rules against “hateful conduct”. And that’s on a site which not only allows Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a violently racist hate group, to use its platform, but has turned a blind eye to his top tweet, “Thoroughly and completely unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.” According to Twitter, there’s nothing hateful about that.

Hamas, which has killed many Jews and called for the extermination of the Jewish people, is able to use Twitter. Hezbollah, the PFLP, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and a number of other Islamic terrorist organizations are also welcome on Twitter. Instead the social media giant has chosen to censor Jewish critics who tell the truth about Islamic terrorism and anti-Semitism.

Twitter’s silencing of David Horowitz follows multiple suspensions of the Jewish civil rights group Canary Mission, threats against Robert Spencer, the suspension of ex-Muslim artist Bosch Fawstin, and the suspension of Jamie Glazov for quoting Islamic teachings on the abuse of women, among many others.

Meanwhile Iran’s Supreme Leader was able to tweet, “Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen.”

His tweet calling for the extermination of millions of Jews, unlike Horowitz’s tweet which told the truth about the origins of the anti-Semitism behind this hatred, is still up. And that’s the problem.

Social media platforms like Twitter aren’t removing hatred, they’re silencing dissent.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently admitted that the site had a “left-leaning” bias. “Are we doing something according to political ideology or viewpoints? And we are not,” he insisted.

But if there is no ideological bias, why has David Horowitz been silenced, while Farrakhan, Hamas and the bigot whom Horowitz was debating are allowed to spew their hatred? The bias is obvious.

David Horowitz is one of the leading active conservative voices on Twitter, and he was not only exposing the truth about Islamic anti-Semitism, but had been taking on John Brennan. The Freedom Center and Front Page Magazine had been exposing Brennan’s radical roots from the very beginning. It may be no coincidence that Horowitz’s suspension came as he was vigorously pushing back against the lefty narrative of the moment by reminding leftists and Never Trumpers of Brennan’s radicalism.

Horowitz had earlier responded to David Frum’s defense of John Brennan against allegations that the former CIA boss had converted to Islam. Brennan had described marveling, “at the majesty of the Hajj and the devotion of those who fulfilled their duty as Muslims by making that pilgrimage.”

Brennan has never explained how he might have witnessed the “majesty of the Haji” since non-Muslims aren’t allowed into Mecca. He also hasn’t explained the defenses and excuses that he has offered for Islamic terror groups. Or his declaration that, “Jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam”.

After the Helsinki press conference, Brennan claimed that Trump’s remarks were “nothing short of treasonous” and that the president “rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’” Meanwhile in ’09, Brennan claimed that Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy Islamic terror group responsible for the brutal murder of numerous Americans had “evolved”.

Brennan insisted that Hezbollah has “lawyers, doctors” who “look at that extremist terrorist core as being something that is anathema”. And that Hezbollah would see America as an “honest broker”. Then he claimed that Hamas was really a social welfare organization that had somehow “developed an extremist and terrorist element”.

This has been Brennan’s consistent message. Next year, he referred to Jerusalem as Al Quds, the colonial name of the Islamic conquerors. And this year, during the Hamas attacks on Israel, Brennan blamed the deaths in Gaza from the Hamas attacks on Israel on the “utter disregard” of “Trump & Netanyahu for Palestinian rights.” Nothing short of treasonous indeed.

And Twitter has not censured, silenced, censored, suspended or shadowbanned John Brennan.

This is typical of how Twitter empowers voices that attack the victims of Islamic terror while muzzling those voices that speak out on their behalf. David Horowitz has spoken out in defense of the victims of Islamic terrorism while John Brennan has defended Islamic terrorism, Hezbollah and Hamas.

It’s no wonder that Brennan, like Hamas and Iran’s Supreme Leader, is welcome on Twitter. And that David Horowitz isn’t. Twitter is not punishing “hateful conducting”. It’s punishing political dissent.

Islamic hatred and persecution of Christians and Jews is the greatest civil rights issue of our time.

As David Horowitz had courageously reminded us, hundreds of thousands of Christians have been murdered or forced into exile by Islamic forces in recent years. This great genocide has largely gone unremarked. And while there are Holocaust museums and memorials in every city, no one dares to speak the inconvenient truth that since the fall of Nazi Germany, only one powerful worldwide ideology has spent generations trying to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth. That ideology is Islam.

And David Horowitz has been censored for speaking about the unspeakable.

Media corporations, governments and social media companies continue trying to suppress that truth. It’s what Twitter and John Brennan have in common. Both insist that telling the truth about Islam is unacceptable. According to Brennan, Jihad is holy and Hamas violence is Israel’s fault.

And Twitter is willing to silence anyone who stands up and speaks the truth.

Censorship only calls attention to the thing being censored. Twitter’s censoring of David Horowitz’s tweet hasn’t suppressed it. Instead an audience far greater will see it than would have otherwise.

Whether it’s governments or corporations, censorship doesn’t work. It only calls attention to the truth.