Twitter
Gives Islamist Anti-Semites a Pass but Suspended MB Critic
by John Rossomando
IPT News
February 1, 2019
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 In Twitter's world,
calling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization can get you
suspended, but those defending Palestinian terrorist attacks and comparing
American Jewish kids who join the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to ISIS
foreign fighters rarely face consequences.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted last summer that his employees have a
left-leaning bias, and this is evident both in how Twitter's rules on hate
are written and enforced. It should either tailor and enforce them equally
or not have them at all.
Twitter suspended a Canadian Coptic Christian woman who goes by
"Laura" and tweets under the handle @womaninmedicine in September
for calling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group. Egypt's Coptic
Christians were terrorized by gangs linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in the
wake of the Egyptian military's 2013 ouster of President Mohamed Morsi.
Several countries, including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain
and Saudi Arabia classify the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.
"What I can't understand is why they'd be offended if I called MB
TERRORISTS when MB is outlawed" by Saudi Arabia, the woman, who would
not provide her real identity, told the Investigative Project on Terrorism
(IPT).
Twitter told Laura that her comment violated its rule on "Hateful conduct: You may not promote
violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis
of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender
identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease."
Twitter never clarified how expressing an opinion that the Brotherhood –
a religious and political movement – is a terrorist group promoted violence
or hate against people based on any protected class. After the suspension
drew protests, her account was re-activated and she was told
"it looks like we made an error."
Laura remains skeptical.
"I realized pro MB Muslims were mass reporting me every time I
posted about it saying my tweet [was a form of] religious discrimination.
Various times I've reported tweets for being anti-Christian and nothing
happened," she said. "I've resorted to carefully using terminology
in my tweets to avoid suspensions now."
Conservatives complain that Twitter has unjustly suspended or removed
their accounts. Among them:
- Twitter flagged an August
2017 post by Islam critic Robert for saying that "Islam is not a
religion of peace. The Quran exhorts Muslims to wage war against and
subjugate unbelievers."
- Right-wing provocateur Laura Loomer lost
her account in November chiefly due to a post calling U.S.
Rep. Ilhan Omar "anti Jewish" and making statements critical
of Islam. .
- Talk show host Lars Larson received
a 12-hour Twitter ban earlier this month for criticizing a Portland,
Ore. mayoral candidate.
- Actor James Woods was locked
out of his Twitter account in September after he joked
about having men stay home during the midterms and letting women do
all of the voting.
- Conservative author Elizabeth Kantor was banned
in August after she described herself as "whitey" in a post
supporting New York Times reporter Sarah Jeong for her
#CancelWhitePeople hashtag.
Examples of similar sanctions against accounts belong to Islamists and
their supporters are more difficult to find.
Twitter rules forbids accounts from "targeting individuals with
repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade
or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected
category."
Yet that rule raises questions about the permissibility of chronic
verbal attacks on Israel. Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council
on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) San Francisco-Bay Area chapter,
provides an example. Billoo has used Twitter to call Israel a terrorist
state, compare American Jews who join the Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
to ISIS, defend Hamas
and Hizballah rocket
attacks against Israel, and to call for Israel's destruction.
She repeatedly has referred to Israel in harsher language than the
Coptic woman's post that got her suspended. Her rhetoric is similar to
that used by white supremacist Israel hater David Duke. "Israel is an
apartheid, racist state, which engages in terrorism against
Palestinians," Billoo has written at least five times, including three in succession last
summer. In one, she said she was repeating "JUST IN CASE THE ZIONISTS
DIDN'T HEAR ME."
Billoo demonized American Jewish young people who have joined the IDF
comparing them to terrorists. "Have more American youth joined the IDF
than American youth have joined ISIS? Is one genocidal group different than
the other? #CVESummit," Billoo wrote in February 2015.
She repeated this
point last May: "doesn't see any difference between American youth
leaving the country to join ISIS or the IDF. Both are murderous, war crime
committing, terrorist entities."
She also has repeated
a slogan that amounts to a call for Israel's elimination. "From
the river to the sea, #Palestine will be free," she wrote in November. Her comment came
after CNN fired commentator Marc Lamont Hill for uttering the
exact same phrase.
"From the river to the sea ..." is used by Palestinian
terrorist groups including Hamas, the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as well as by Mahmoud
Abbas' Fatah
faction and its Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorist wing. Hamas' revised
2017 charter still rejects Israel's right to exist. "Hamas rejects any
alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the
river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the
Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights," the
revised charter states.
The IPT asked whether examples like these complied with user rules. A
Twitter spokeswoman, who would only respond on background, said the social
media platform applies its rules evenly.
Twitter's tolerance of rhetoric like Billoo's should not be surprising.
Palestinian terrorist groups including Hamas, thePFLP, the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine -- General Command (PFLP-GC), and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
use similar rhetoric and continue to operate freely on Twitter despite an official
ban on violent extremist groups having accounts.
Twitter blocked
the accounts inside Israel last June, after Israeli authorities threatened Twitter with legal sanctions. But they
remain active and available to the rest of the world.
Twitter also tolerates anti-Semitism from voices on the far left like
Louis Farrakhan. In October, The Hill reported that Twitter would not suspend Farrakhan for
an Oct. 17 post comparing Jews to termites.
Twitter is quick to discipline what it perceives as misbehavior from
voices on the political right, while giving a pass to voices on the left,
said Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes. Pipes believes that the way
Twitter's rules on hate are written and implemented is politically biased.
"Twitter, like Facebook, Google, and other internet giants, has
unfortunately slipped into a pattern of permitting misbehavior from the
Left and its allies (especially anti-Zionists) while it cracks down on
perfectly civilized statements coming from the Right," Pipes said in
an email. "Like universities, the internet services are headed down a
dark road that will end badly unless they quickly fix this problem."
Related Topics: John
Rossomando, social
media, Twitter,
hate
speech, Zahra
Billoo, blind
hate, Muslim
Brotherhood, Hamas,
Hizballah,
terrorist
accounts, Marc
Lamont Hill, Daniel
Pipes
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