On Censorship Once Again

I woke up this morning to find an e-mail stating my Twitter account had been locked and the account suspended. Apparently I "broke community rules" with one of yesterday's posts on this blog. This was the one in which I attacked and published the so-called manifesto of the white supremacist nutcase who attacked a Synagogue in the states.

It was quite clear that I was doing this to both oppose and expose hate yet this was considered to be "unsuitable" content. I have no idea whether it was banned as a result of a complaint or some algorithm picked it up. It's not as if my Twitter account has much of a readership. In fact it's tiny. I only set it up to replace Google Plus and have not really done much with it except post links to my blog.

A couple of years back Facebook removed one of my posts due to a complaint. I had published an article about FEMEN making one of their topless protests, against Trump as it happens. However it seems the sight of ladies nipples is far to offensive. And yet Facebook then and now continues to host real hate groups and allows graphic videos of violence to be posted.

Recently both Facebook and twitter have been introducing policies to ban hate groups though seemingly only the far-right is their target. Nick Griffin, Britain First and their leaders, the BNP and even Tommy Robinson all had their accounts closed down. Some people cheered at this. I do not there is a problem. Where does this end.

Look at the other end of the political spectrum, Communists and Marxists whose ideology has actually killed more people than the fascists remain unaffected. Some of these groups are riddled with their own forms of hate and racism. Even the Labour Party under Corbyn has developed a problem with anti-Semitism. Should all these organisations have their social media accounts closed?

Then there's the Islamists. Difficult to define a border between very conservative Islamic site and those of so-called extremists. In any case calling for the killing of gays, apostates and infidels is hate speech no? There's plenty of these groups out there. seemingly untouched by either Twitter or Facebook.

Yes some sites that actually advocate murder and killing should be closed but where do you draw the line when it comes to groups that believe in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism or whatever. This involves violence.

Most revolutions are far from peaceful and the Bolshevik coup d'etat led to the deaths of untold millions first in Russia and then in China let alone other smaller regimes. Marxism is inherently authoritarian and like fascism and even Islamism engages in mass social engineering that leads to the deaths of those who do not conform, obey, fit in, are simply in the way or considered inferior or intellectually dangerous.

Yet Marxists get a free pass as do fundamentalist Islamists. There is a grey line but drawing the "Rubicon" is not easy and the suppression of one persons right to free speech may have unintended effects.

That's what happened to my tweet. In condemning white supremacists and anti-Semitism in an informative way I somehow fell foul of some policy that doesn't fit all. I condemned the criminal and his so-called manifesto.

We need to read the views of those who oppose democracy or worse. Forewarned is forearmed against dictatorship.