Op-Ed: Twitter suppression revelations and America’s war against itself, The Wonder Decades

Image: — © AFP Jung Yeon-je

In the broad context, America, the most highly medicated, heavily armed, and financially encumbered nation on Earth, has now been at war with itself for about 15 years. This war has now gone on much longer than the actual Civil War. Nobody is winning, particularly America or Americans. Things have got much worse.  

Now, apparently, it’s time for a retrospective. Twitter has released information indicating that the former management of Twitter engaged in the active suppression of right-wing activists. This is according to News Corp, that famously unbiased source of news and fashion tips for the dead.

Twitter’s former management denied doing so, but it seems at face value, subject to confirmation, that they did. (Sorry, a few screenshots don’t qualify as court-standard evidence.) Things get weird fast enough on Twitter, and some actual scrutiny is required. I’ll even take Musk’s commentary at face value, but this is an extremely odd case in more ways than the obvious.

A bit of background – Depth perception

Twitter is a reliable indicator of the sheer lack of depth and depth perception in US politics. If you search the term “Woke” on Twitter and browse for a bit, you get a pretty high dose of this anti-woke stuff, more spin on subjects the writers can barely spell. “Woke” originally meant “justice”, a word also seen in the Pledge of Allegiance, and basic law, but who cares about that? Any degree of depth is dangerously like knowing what you’re talking about.

There’s a long history to synopsize here. Since at least 2007, before Obama, disinformation has been in the spin cycle. It goes around a lot and does nothing useful. In short, the spin is now and always about the spin, and in this Twitter case, ancient spin. Nor as usual is there any depth perception.

This case will be all about suppression in the headlines, but not in context with anything else. Nobody will talk about FOX and others shouting down and suppressing all counter-commentary for all these years.

Anything that distracts from the present is usually pretty good market content in America. The present isn’t very nice. The words “failed state” won’t go away. Unresolved issues include education, crime, health, rights, homelessness, and so on, in a sort of never-ending elegy of obscenities. Most of Gen Z wasn’t even in grade school when these massive crises hit.

These aren’t even issues in US politics. The big deal will be about suppression. So Twitter, as the true incarnate form of the short attention span of US politics, is an archive of the issues of the past, as well as the place for the “national reflux” of the present. Twitter is the perfect place to talk about Twitter, things that happened years ago, and anything but issues.

If you want to bring up the past, (you might not) Twitter is a strange montage of right-wing has-beens, too:

• Breitbart
• Cambridge Analytica
• QAnon
• Alex Jones
• Gamergate and various hate campaigns against anyone and everyone
• MAGA
• Various nonentities like the legions of failed GOP candidates, etc.

Suppression; the other side of the sewer

There’s a point that needs making here in context with suppression. None of these ex-somebodies, never-somebodies and ex-issues were “suppressed” as such.  They ranted and raved freely. They all obliterated themselves in a sort of blaze of self-destruction and self-obsolescence.

As media marketing, (which is what politics is, for those wondering), it’s like a Golden Oldies chart for some senile Billboard retro history. Maybe my list is selective, but they all have that “expiry factor” in common. They came and went like old cars.

That’s what will happen with the current cases of rabies, too. Any website, particularly social media, can restrict anyone through terms of service. That’s standard practice. Exactly why Twitter denied it was doing so is highly questionable.

Stranger still – If they wanted to endear themselves to the other side of politics, they could have done so easily without triggering First Amendment issues. Why not?

The provision of a service subject to terms of service is 100% unambiguous. Otherwise, you just don’t get that service, and that’s the whole story. You don’t go to your local dry cleaner and expect service while acting like a homicidal maniac to other customers, either.

So why is the former Twitter management in this weird position? They were perfectly within their rights to block whoever they wanted through TOS. It does not, and cannot, make sense, that they didn’t do it on that basis.

I do not “revere” the former regime. I only started getting notifications about my Twitter hits a few days ago after years on the site, and I’m on the other side of politics. What’s to admire?

I don’t begin to believe the Twitter pre-takeover balance sheet numbers, either. I also can’t believe that “we’re not doing what we were doing for years” as public policy for all that time adds much to their credibility.

There’s definitely a case to answer. The trouble is that like most things in US politics, the simple answer, not the correct answer, will get the coverage.

____________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.