Twitter suspends accounts in bid to tackle hate speech

After months of promising a crackdown on hate speech and abuse on Twitter, the company on Monday suspended several accounts tied to an ultra-nationalist British group whose inflammatory anti-Muslim videos were retweeted by President Trump last month.

Though the suspensions sparked outrage among farright groups, Twitter’s move was anything but sudden.

It was the latest in a steady rollout of policies that Twitter hopes will make the social network more approachable for non-users and more palatable for women and people of color — two groups that are among Twitter’s most loyal, as well as most vulnerable to the barbs of Internet trolls and abusers.

While some heralded Twitter’s crackdown as a step toward making the platform safer and more welcoming, others balked at the notion of speech and expression being regulated by a tech firm whose policy enforcement remains largely opaque.

Several online civil rights groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology and the San Franciscobased Electronic Frontier Foundation, have questioned the power of tech giants and cautioned those who cheer corporate take-downs of farright users and Nazi websites that they could be next.

“Any tool that enables censorship online can be used against potentially everyone —

regardless of ideology,” said Emma Llansó, the director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology, last summer after several far-right groups were removed from social media sites.

Twitter’s diminished tolerance for tweets considered hateful, abusive or violent has become part of its corporate strategy over the past several months. The company has pushed a steady rollout of safeguards and restrictions, including the suspension of numerous accounts associated with white supremacists, terrorists and other violent organizations.

Twitter has long been accused of amplifying the reach of people and rhetoric that promote hate, extremist views and violence. Moving away from its free-speech stance that anything goes and users can self-regulate enough to weed out problematic tweets, Twitter this year took a more hard-line position.

Instead of relying on the content of tweets alone, Twitter announced Monday, the company will take into account a person’s profile — whether they’re associated with known hate groups or espouse ideology that violates Twitter’s terms and conditions, such as white supremacy or vocal support of terrorist groups.

What the company deems hateful imagery, such as swastikas and other symbols, will be hidden behind a content warning that allows users the option of viewing it. No such symbols or imagery will be allowed on profiles.

It was not immediately clear what other symbols or images might fall into Twitter’s definition of hateful content. Many white nationalists have adopted the cartoon symbol of Pepe the Frog, a meme that was transformed during the 2016 presidential campaign to be a symbol of far-right Trump supporters. It is among the symbols identified by the AntiDefamation League as espousing Nazi ideology.

“If an account’s profile information includes a violent threat or multiple slurs, epithets, racist or sexist tropes, incites fear, or reduces someone to less than human, it will be permanently suspended,” Twitter’s safety team explained in a company blog post Monday. “We consider hateful imagery to be logos, symbols or images whose purpose is to promote hostility and malice against others based on their race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or ethnicity/national origin.”

Privately owned tech companies are not subject to the First Amendment, which ensures the right to speech free from government censorship. Most apply their own terms of service.

But it can be hard to tell whether a company is implementing its rules fairly or singling out individuals or groups that it may not like, Llansó said.

On Monday, following the company’s announcement and suspension of accounts run by and associated with Britain

“Any tool that enables censorship online can be used against potentially everyone.” Emma Llansó, director, Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technolog y

First, a far-right group that believes white Christian civilization is under attack from Islam, other conservative leaders and self-identifying members of the alt-right took to Twitter to criticize the company’s new rules as an effort to “purge” and censor them.

It was not immediately clear how many other accounts were suspended when Twitter’s new rules took effect Monday. Britain First’s Jayda Fransen, whose anti-Muslim tweets were recently retweeted by President Trump, had her account suspended Monday.

Twitter declined to specify what others were banned, or how many were removed.

“Accounts that affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes” will be suspended, Twitter wrote in its announcement Monday.

The so-called alt-right, a coalition born online that combines racism, white nationalism, anti-feminism and populism in its politics and memedriven trolling, has for months been building alternatives to Twitter and other social media sites due to increased crackdowns on hate speech and ideology.

Several far-right Twitter users wondered aloud whether the company would apply the same treatment to members of antifa — a militarized far-left anti-racist group that monitors and exposes local neo-Nazis, organizes protests to oppose white supremacist demonstrations and often uses violence and extreme measures to fight back against fascism and the rise of white supremacy.

There was, however, one exception to its new rules: governments and military organizations.

So long as governmental forces are “currently engaging in” or have in engaged in peacemaking efforts, Twitter said, violent tweets, messaging and other incidents will not be held to the same standard as individuals espousing similarly violent rhetoric.