The negative trend about Twitter – on Twitter – is not an unusual occurrence. We have often seen #BoycottTwitter and similar trends on Twitter. Recently #TwitterExposed was trending because of a video being circulated by a lot of people as proof of Twitter’s selective censoring of voices on its platform. The video claims to feature Twitter engineer Siru Murugsen who refers to his colleagues as ‘commie as f**k’ among other things. Take a look at the video from Project Veritas.
The man in the video also speaks about how, many Twitter employees are strongly against the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. The ideological leanings of the speaker seem to be framing this as a capitalist vs socialist issue.
This video is being widely shared along with the #TwitterExposed hashtag. It is being seen as vindication by those who believe that the platform is selective in the way that flags misinformation, hate speech and other problematic content.
This is described as a ‘far-right’ group that is known for its deceptively edited videos and what Howard Tumber, Silvio Waisbord refer to as “fabricated 'sting' operations” in their book. The organisation is known to use dubious methods such as entrapment to generate bad publicity for their targets (usually reformist or progressive individuals/organisations).
Project Veritas is also known for propagating conspiracy theories and deliberate disinformation. It has clearly ultra-conservative ideological leanings and its founder James O'Keefe is something of a poster-child for right-wing supporters. The identity of the speaker in the video is said to be Siru Murugsen a senior engineer. However, this is unconfirmed and the video has not been authenticated as yet which casts further doubt on the video and its contents.
The claim that Twitter silences right wing apologists is seen to be a dubious one. Numerous studies have found the opposite to be true.
The veracity of the video and its contents are also being questioned because Project Veritas is not recognised as a creditable or reliable source. According to the widely cited fact checking website, mediabiasfactcheck.com it is an extremely questionable source based on prameters such as funding, bias and failed fact checks.
Commentators pointed out the fact that the video is choppy and clearly edited and spliced. An employee who says he worked for four hours in quarter seems to be scoring something of a self-goal in trying to explain why Twitter is not profitable. Or is this a complaint against great working conditions? This seems unclear.
The problem with a lot of people who claim that their right to free speech has been infringed is often that they do not recognise one simple point. They do not see the difference between ‘free speech’ and ‘hate speech’. When something furthers prejudice, encourages hatred or violence towards a person or group based on religion, sex, nationality, race etc. it is hate speech. When content or a claim is false, misleading and/or discriminatory, it is not free speech. It is not liable to be protected and will be flagged as such. This is not censorship. Those trending #TwitterExposed may do well to recognise this difference.
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