For liberal Twitter, “hateful conduct” can be any joke that makes conservatives smile.
Radio host and blogger Erick Erickson was suspended on May 31 for cracking a joke about Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Elizabeth Warren. In a tweet from May 30, Erickson wrote, “Elizabeth Warren set to introduce the Wrecking American Prosperity Under Marxism, or WAMPUM Act, wherein she gives away everything for free.”
Twitter seemed to take a side with Warren by grouping her as a protected minority. Erickson was suspended for “promoting violence against, threatening or harassing other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.”
Erickson wrote on his suspension in the Resurgent, saying, “I’ve expected to get suspended from Twitter for angering the transgender community for refusing to conform to their language.” However, he was shocked to find it was not his traditional beliefs on gender that warranted a suspension. It was a joke about Warren that called down the banhammer.
The defense is ironic in and of itself, since Warren is a strong advocate for breaking up large tech monopolies such as Twitter and Facebook.
Warren’s claim to Native American heritage has been an ill-fated and notorious struggle. Even though she eventually admitted to having very little blood connections to the Native Americans, Warren still claimed minority status while at Harvard. She contributed to a Cherokee cookbook using this claim. Liberal comedian Trevor Noah joked that this was similar to someone with no African descent writing “Snacks for Blacks.”
Erickson wrote, “I continue to maintain Twitter is a garbage platform run by garbage people and yet again am reminded that is true.”
Perhaps Twitter is willing to protect the minority group that claims to have ethnic descent but has none in reality.
