Oh, its not meddling of course, when a certain side does it.
Campaign accounts of two British candidates for the European Parliament, Tommy Robinson and Carl Benjamin, have been deleted by Twitter, prompting outcries of election meddling with less than a month before the vote.
Robinson and Benjamin – better known under his YouTube handle ‘Sargon of Akkad’ – are running in the May 23 election, which the UK will have to participate in due to the ongoing Brexit delays. Benjamin is a member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), while Robinson announced his independent candidacy on Thursday.
Both of them have had personal accounts purged from Twitter a while ago, but the accounts terminated on Friday were run by their campaign staff, and not them personally.
“We are investigating why, but strongly suspect this is a deliberate act of political censorship to deny a candidate his voice in a crucial election,” Benjamin’s campaign staffer Michael De La Broc said, adding the campaign will complain to the election authorities and maybe even seek restitution in court for “political interference by a foreign entity in our elections.”
UKIP has also declared the ban “election interference” and vowed to “get to the bottom” of the issue.
Benjamin has come under attack by the media and establishment politicians, who have accused him of “racist” speech. The YouTuber maintains he fights for free speech and against political correctness.
Mainstream media have described Robinson as a “far-right activist” and accused him of “Islamophobia.” He was banned from Facebook and Instagram in February over alleged “hate speech.”
British Muslim organization Tell MAMA has claimed credit for reporting Robinson’s campaign account to Twitter, saying it’s using the candidacy to circumvent his personal ban.
The purge of MEP candidates comes just three days after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey went to the White House and met with US President Donald Trump to address complaints about “shadowbanning” and suspensions disproportionately targeting conservative voices on the social media platform.
While Twitter and other social media platforms have defended censorship on grounds that they are companies and not the government, last year a federal judge in the US ruled that Twitter is a “designated public forum,” and that Trump is not allowed to block people from his personal account on grounds of political speech.
Free speech has its limits and I’m glad Twitter is taking a stand in showing that there’s no place for intolerance, racism, homophobia and xenophobia anywhere.
Well done. Patriot can learn a valuable lesson from this.
Twitter is a private enterprise. They can choose to have whatever user base they wish. If they don’t want racists and abusers associated with their company, that is up to them. I thought conservatives we’re champions of free enterprise?
Tommy Robinson is a racist, who not only uses racial slurs but also believes in white supremacy. Shocking…that he would be banned from a mainstream social media platform.
Both of them have had personal accounts purged from Twitter a while ago, but the accounts terminated on Friday were run by their campaign staff, and not them personally.
Not even shocking to me, that you progressive folks dont read the article fully before reving up those keyboards. Public education was a mistake.
I don’t need to read the full article to understand the complete situation. I am well aware that Tommy Robinson has been banned from Twitter for a long time. It’s obvious that any account promoting him or his views, whether or not he has decided to run for some political office somewhere, would also be banned from Twitter.
What I truly don’t understand is why conservatives and racists continue to use platforms like Twitter and Facebook. You aren’t welcome on those platforms. I personally believe that it’s only to get headlines and free press. Everyone knows what’s going to happen when they create an account.
No mental gymnastics here. I believe in being straightforward and honest. If you want to see some mental gymnastics, talk to a Trump supporter who believes that Trump is going to build the wall and that Mexico is going to pay for it
I can see that, you being okay with one kind of hate bc its politically correct. Feel bad for you folks having Trump ruining your day as a default start, every day.
Well OP, the thread was specifically about Twitter banning the campaign accounts of Tommy Robinson and Sargon of Akkad.
For whatever reason you decided to include Lewis Farrakhan’s unconfirmed interaction on Twitter because you believe that it justifies your argument. It doesn’t. It has no connection to the campaign accounts of Tommy Robinson or Sargon getting suspended by Twitter.
This thread is about twitter cherry-picking who to ban for political motivation, and Louis Farrakhan’s anti-semetic action is included to show twitter’s double standard / bias. Am I expecting too much from you seeing how youre having trouble transcribing names from the image of the headline that you are having trouble reading that I spoonfed you?
I thought youre an advocate for limited free speech? Isnt Louis Farrakhan’s tweet hateful? Oh you meant approved speech. Got it. You libs gotta teach me your powerful way of mental gymnastics
You didn’t even provide any evidence that Louis Farrakhan made that tweet. People can Photoshop just about anything nowadays. Even if he did make that tweet, Twitter may have issued him a warning. If they did that is well within their rights as a private company. Tommy Robinson and Sargon have been banned. They aren’t welcome on Twitter. Yet you are shocked that accounts associated with them got banned.
