Can POLITICS get your Twitter account suspended? Twitter claims political neutrality, but the Twitterverse isn’t buying it after THIS.
What would you do if you were on a highway on a night where violence was engulfing your city (context: Charlotte) and you found the road blocked by ‘Protesters’?
— Sit in your car and hope they keep their distance?
— Try to ease through the crowd?
— Lean on your horn and keep going?
That sort of question got the ‘Instapundit’ account suspended yesterday, without warning.
Twitter has unblocked my account on condition of deleting the offending tweet. I've done so, but it's here:: https://t.co/DDkZd2el6Y
— Instapundit.com (@instapundit) September 22, 2016
He discussed it in his interview on Hugh Hewitt’s show:
GR: Well, you know, I actually tried to figure it out. I woke up and just found out my account was suspended, and didn’t know why and couldn’t find an email from them. It’s apparently a tweet I put up last night. They had a thing about how protestors were stopping traffic and surrounding vehicles on the interstate, and I said, perhaps a little too pithily, but it is Twitter, “run them down.” And apparently, that’s why, I don’t actually know that’s why they did it. but I assume that’s why they did it, because that’s what everybody’s talking about. I’ve heard nothing from Twitter.
…GR: Yeah, I’ve blogged about that before where we’ve had other interstates blocked and people surrounded by mobs. I’ve always said I would just keep driving.
HH: And so do you regret being pithy? Might you have said something along the lines of “If threatened, you can run them down?”
GR: I mean, I guess. Although I, you know, it’s Twitter. Pithy is what you do on Twitter, and you sort of expect people to figure out what you’re saying from context.
HH: Do you expect Twitter to shut off your opportunity to expand, expound and argue, maybe even apologize if people are offended and you believe it’s legit? But they’ve cut you off. That’s what I don’t understand. How can they cut you off?
GR: Well, I guess it’s just a button they push. I don’t really know. They seem to have been doing this to a lot of people lately. And you know, if I were a cynic, I would say that this is sort of an effort to shape the media battlespace between now and the election by silencing voices. And you know, if I were a cynic, that’s certainly what I’d think was going on.
…GR: But I have to say I don’t apologize for the sentiment. I think that this tactic of blocking people on the interstate and surrounding cars is itself violent. It is threatening. It is not peaceful protest, and it should not be permitted.
Full Interview at Hugh Hewitt
Naturally Twitter responded with its trademark sarcasm (hat tip to Twitchy):
Or straight up hostility:
What would YOU do if your car was blocked by 'Protesters'?
