Twitter Allows ‘Burn Louisville’ to Trend, Claims No Violation

September 25th, 2020 4:08 PM

If President Donald Trump says he will enforce law and order, that’s abusive behavior. But if Twitter users call to burn down the city of Louisville, that’s fine. 

Twitter saw no rule violation in the calls to burn down the city of Louisville, KY after the grand jury indictment came down in the Breonna Taylor case, according to a Fox Business article. Burn Louisville even trended on Twitter. 

Tweets that were submitted to Twitter for a comment included a tweet that had a link to an article about the indictment and called to “burn it all down.” Another very specific tweet said, “I hope They burn down the entire city of Louisville,” and inexplicably ended with a heart emoji. A reply to that tweet insisted, “Nah you gotta go after the people. So everyone involved in the case. Burn their houses down. We aren’t out numbered just unorganized.” One more tweet submitted to Twitter for a comment stated, “I hope Louisville burn for 40 days and 40 nights straight.” This user followed that up by emphasizing: “This is a Black opinion keep your Non Black/coon tears to yourself.”

Fox Business explained that a Twitter spokesperson insisted these tweets “are currently not in violation of the Twitter” guidelines. A separate request for comment on these same tweets was not answered at the time of publication of this article.

In contrast, back in June, Trump tweeted a statement about the threat of Antifa in Washington, D.C. that Twitter found to be troublesome. At the time, protesters attempted to set up an autonomous zone in historic St. John’s Episcopal Church. Trump responded with a tweet that said, “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!” Twitter applied a “public interest notice” to the tweet, saying that it violated its “policy against abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.” 

Twitter has shown a clear double standard through its own actions. It considers the president saying that he will protect citizens by enforcing the law to be abusive behavior. Yet when people call to burn down an entire city, Twitter apparently sees no problem at all.

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