Why I ended my fight with Twitter—for now
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Late last week, I finally had a long-awaited phone conversation with two senior policy-team members at Twitter to discuss my suspension from their platform, then well into its second week, for using the image from the cover of my book on the radical Right, AlWhy I ended my fight with Twitter—for now
Late last week, I finally had a long-awaited phone conversation with two senior policy-team members at Twitter to discuss my suspension from their platform, then well into its second week, for using the image from the cover of my book on the radical Right, Alt-America, featuring stars from the American flag converted into KKK hoods. The whole point of the suspension was my refusal to change the profile picture as a matter of principle: I have seen too many of my fellow journalists suspended from the platform simply for doing their jobs. I chose not to budge as a way of calling attention to the stupidity of Twitter’s algorithms, and their inability to distinguish between genuine hate speech and hate-group recruitment and the journalism and activism that exposes and reports on it. By the end of my conversation, I was partially satisfied that at least Twitter’s policymakers are indeed aware of the problem and are working to overcome it—which included their plea to me to participate in their efforts to do so. At the end of the day, I’m focused on actually making a difference in the real world as opposed to symbolic victories, so I compromised a bit, since it was also clear they were going to firmly support the decision to suspend me. As they explained it to me, the problem with the image in my profile was that it was ambiguous enough in its intent that they couldn’t be assured that people using the site wouldn’t flee in fear at the sight of my little Klan-hooded stars. I reiterated to them my view that this concern was mostly ludicrous, though I really couldn’t disagree that a right-wing extremist might be able to hijack it and use it for his own purposes. The problem for them wasn’t the image itself but rather its isolation: If it appeared in a way that provided better context, then they were fine with it. Read more