{"id":258888,"date":"2014-06-17T16:44:00","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T21:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=258888"},"modified":"2024-01-27T16:45:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-27T21:45:21","slug":"twitter-struggles-to-remain-the-free-speech-wing-of-the-free-speech-party-as-it-suspends-terrorist-accounts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2014\/06\/17\/twitter-struggles-to-remain-the-free-speech-wing-of-the-free-speech-party-as-it-suspends-terrorist-accounts\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter struggles to remain the free-speech wing of the free-speech party as it suspends terrorist accounts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Twitter (s twtr) hasn\u2019t been having a very good time of it lately: turmoil in the company\u2019s executive ranks \u2014 including the recent departure of the chief operating officer and the head of Twitter\u2019s media unit \u2014 has raised concerns<\/a> about deeper issues and the service\u2019s lackluster growth. But the real-time information network has other fires to put out as well, including a fear that the company\u2019s global and financial ambitions may be stifling its previous commitment to free speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twitter recently suspended the account<\/a> belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) after the group \u2014 which claims to represent radical Sunni militants \u2014 posted photographs of its activities, including what appeared to be a mass execution in Iraq. The service has also suspended other accounts related to the group for what seem to be similar reasons, including one that live-tweeted the group\u2019s advance<\/a> into the city of Mosul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, the company hasn\u2019t commented on why it has taken these steps, but the violent imagery contained in them could well be part of the reason \u2014 that and specific threats of violence, which are a breach of Twitter\u2019s terms of use<\/a>. Others have suggested that the company might also be concerned about a U.S. law that forbids any U.S. person or entity<\/a> from providing \u201cmaterial support or resources to\u201d an organization that appears on the official list of terrorist groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not as though the action against ISIS comes in a vacuum either: in recent months, Twitter has removed or \u201cgeo-censored\u201d tweets in Turkey, Ukraine and Russia at the request of governments<\/a> in those countries. Twitter obviously has to deal with the law in the countries in which it does business \u2014 but every time it takes such a step, it engages in a little more censorship, and each time it loses a little bit of the \u201cfree-speech wing of the free-speech party\u201d goodwill it built up during the Arab Spring<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Twitter does sometimes restore the content it blocks: on Tuesday, the service restored access to tweets and accounts<\/a> in Pakistan that it blocked at the request of the government there, saying: \u201cWe have reexamined the requests and, in the absence of additional clarifying information from Pakistani authorities, have determined that restoration of the previously withheld content is warranted\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who decides which accounts to censor?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Part of Twitter\u2019s problem is that it doesn\u2019t want to be seen as a tool for terrorist groups, and yet its decision to police this kind of behavior<\/a> forces it to make choices about whose speech is appropriate and whose isn\u2019t \u2014 so the al-Shabaab account has to go, but the Taliban can continue to have an account, and Hamas (which is categorized as a terrorist organization by many groups and governments) was able to post what many saw as a specific threat<\/a> of violence directed towards Israel during the attacks on the Gaza Strip last year, and Twitter didn\u2019t appear to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the larger issue is that whether or not accounts like ISIS are posting troubling or disturbing \u2014 or even politically sensitive \u2014 images and other information, there\u2019s arguably a public interest in having them continue to do so. As Self-trained British journalist<\/a> and weapons expert Brown Moses has pointed out a number of times, images and videos posted by such militant or even terrorist groups provide an important physical record of what is happening in these countries, and also allow journalists like Moses to verify events. Removing them, as Facebook has done<\/a> with pages related to Syrian chemical-weapon attacks, makes it harder to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anthropologist Sarah Kendzior noted in a piece she wrote for Al Jazeera<\/a> last year \u2014 about a similar move to suspend an account belonging to the Somali militant group al-Shabaab \u2014 that one of the other frustrating things about Twitter\u2019s moves in these kinds of cases is that the company provides very little transparency about what it is doing or why. For the most part, the only response is a standard disclaimer about how Twitter doesn\u2019t comment on specific accounts or users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twitter may be more focused on building up its user base and satisfying the desires of the financial community or the investors in its stock, but that doesn\u2019t mean it can ignore the other elements of its business \u2014 and that includes its alleged commitment to maintaining an environment for free speech.<\/p>\n

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Twitter (s twtr) hasn\u2019t been having a very good time of it lately: turmoil in the company\u2019s executive ranks \u2014 including the recent departure of the chief operating officer and the head of Twitter\u2019s media unit \u2014 has raised concerns about deeper issues and the service\u2019s lackluster growth. But the real-time information network has other fires to … <\/p>\n

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