This week, all but one of
the industry’s top mobile platforms took a stand against Alex Jones and his endless exploitation of the First Amendment.
Standing apart from Apple, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Spotify,
and LinkedIn, Twitter is vowing to support Infowars and Jones’ other disinformation factories.
Why would a company that has long struggled with bad actors stand by a man whose media
empire is based on lies and deception? Why help Jones turn national tragedies like the slaughter of 20 children from Sandy Hook Elementary School into fodder for conspiracy buffs?
First off,
Twitter says spreading lies doesn’t violate its rules, and that simply offending others isn’t grounds for account suspension. “Twitter is reflective of real conversations happening
in the world and that sometimes includes perspectives that may be offensive, controversial, and/or bigoted,” Del Harvey, vice president of trust and safety at Twitter, notes in a new blog
post.
Like Facebook and YouTube, Twitter draws the line at content that it considers to be harmful or threatening to others, but these platforms clearly define such terms differently.
Earlier this week, for example, Facebook said Jones’ properties violated its Community Standards by publishing “hate speech that attacks or dehumanizes others,” while Twitter
doesn’t think Jones’ fare “harasses, threatens, or uses fear to silence the voices of others.”
Like Facebook -- which had defended its support of Jones’
properties until this week -- Twitter is clearly grappling with its role in the media and information ecosystem.
“They, like other platforms where consumers can post their views on any
given topic, are struggling to reconcile their sense of themselves as a platform with the reality that they are more like media companies,” Brian Wieser, senior analyst at Pivotal Research
Group, tells Mobile Insider.
By its own admission, Twitter’s content policies remain a work in progress.
“Our policies and enforcement options evolve
continuously,” Harvey admitted in her post. “We continue to expand and update both them and our enforcement options to respond to the changing contours of online conversation.”
In other words, Twitter isn’t married to Jones and his brood, and this story will continue to be written.