Twitter has the freedom to impose whatever policies it wants, but it does so in such an incoherent way, that it deserves universal condemnation and mockery.
In any ranking of dumb Twitter suspensions, Quin Hillyer’s has to land pretty high up there. Full disclosure, Quin is a former colleague of mine at the Washington Examiner as well as a former National Review author. He recounts his story:
On Twitter, people often have fun with random nostalgia games. Somebody named Jon B. Wolfsthal posted this : “Tell me you watched SNL in the 1970s without saying you watched SNL in the 1970s.” To which, almost immediately, playing off the phonetic similarity of his first name with that of onetime SNL star Jane Curtin, I wrote: “Jon, you ignorant slut.” As my reply was directly responsive to what Wolfsthal had requested, he quickly both “liked” and retweeted it.
After all, for some 20 years or more, for those of a certain broad age range, the saying “Jane, you ignorant slut” was a catchphrase, a way for people (at parties, or while watching ballgames with friends, or whatever) to laugh while feigning mutual displeasure.
Within 24 hours, Quin received a note from Twitter flagging the tweet and informing him that his account had been suspended, “for violating the Twitter rules. Specifically for: Violating our rules against hateful conduct. You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.”
So, according to Twitter, playfully tweeting out an old SNL joke to somebody who was amused now represents “hateful conduct.”
Some have pointed out that Quin’s suspension was likely triggered by a bot programmed to react to the word “slut” rather than some overly sensitive human. But the suspension started on Saturday night and we’re now into Tuesday morning, so there was plenty of time for a human to intervene to restore sanity.
Quin reports that he wrote a polite note appealing the decision, pointing out the context. He quickly received a reply reading, “Our support team has determined that a violation did take place, and therefore we will not overturn our decision.”
The only option he was given to get his account reactivated is to admit he violated the rules, which he did not.
When we discuss the issue of tech freedom, it is important to emphasize distinct points. Yes, as a private company Twitter has the freedom to impose whatever policies it wants, however arbitrarily. But at the same time, it’s apparent that Twitter does so in such an incoherent way, that it deserves universal condemnation and mockery. The idea that Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei was allowed to use Twitter to communicate with his terrorist proxies and incite rocket attacks against Israeli civilians but that Quin’s repetition of an old SNL joke represented hateful conduct that promotes violence is patently absurd.