As Twitchy told you yesterday, Twitter recently suspended — and then permanently banned — Jesse Kelly. For what? Well, they never did say. But we feel pretty comfortable concluding that Kelly is just among the latest in a series of victims of Twitter’s double standard when it comes to acceptable speech.
This afternoon, GOP Sen. Ben Sasse, who himself has been on the receiving end of some of Kelly’s Twitter shots, called Twitter out for helping to set a “bad precedent” when it comes to free speech:
Jesse Kelly can’t stand me. And I think his tribal war scalping stuff is stupid and wrong.
But that doesn’t matter much compared to the bigger picture here: The trend of de-platforming and shutting down speech is a bad precedent for our free speech society. https://t.co/V11v6uDZY3
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) November 26, 2018
As some tweeters have pointed out in their responses to Sasse, Twitter is a private platform and it’s their prerogative to ban anyone they want to.
Free speech doesn’t mean inalienable access to private media platforms.
— Publius (@MuellerTeamOps) November 26, 2018
Just because you _Want_ to say something doesn't mean that a private company must enable you to do it. Twitter serves its userbase and customers, not some idealized version of free speech.
— Bill Dinger (@adazlian) November 26, 2018
This is a private platform. Capitalism baby.
— Corey Scanlon (@coreyscanlon20) November 26, 2018
It’s almost like they are a private company and can do whatever the hell they want
— Chili Palmer (@blakethomas2755) November 26, 2018
Yes, they can. But the issue is not their rules regarding speech; it’s their arbitrary enforcement of those rules.
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Ooooh, now do wedding cakes.
— Steven Z. (@thefinalgun) November 26, 2018
Bake the cake
— Small Gov Lizard (@smallgovlizard) November 26, 2018
Great – so now we're back to the "we have the right to refuse service argument." When does it become discrimination? Who decides?
— Mattison Brooks (@mattisonbrooks) November 26, 2018
If Twitter wants to ban users for “hate speech,” or whatever they want to call it, that’s fine. But then they need to clearly define what “hate speech” is and hold everyone to the same standard. Otherwise they’re admitting that they’re guilty of the bias of which they’re being quite credibly accused.
The American answer to speech you don’t like is more speech — not less speech. https://t.co/RGQyGJBUfJ
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) November 26, 2018
Amen to that.
Thank you, Senator.
— Joshua Mercer (@joshuamercer) November 26, 2018
thank you for this
— Josh Hammer (@josh_hammer) November 26, 2018
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