Twitter clearly has no problem censoring President Donald Trump. It’s what the social media company has chosen not to censor that has the New York Post crying foul.
The New York Post pointed out Twitter’s blatant hypocrisy in a recent article pointing out that #KillTrump was allowed on the platform, as were tweets from Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and numerous other accounts that the Post has said are “calls for violence.”
“Twitter hosts a #KillTrump hashtag,” reported the Post. “In all of the glorious English language there is no clearer, plainer, or shorter way to call for violence than the word kill followed by someone’s name. But there it is.”
The Post also discussed a tweet from Ayatollah Khamenei, in which the Iranian supreme leader said, “Even though some govts started a treacherous, contemptible move toward normalizing relations with the Zionists, they're too small to end the matter of #Palestine. No! Palestine will be free, while the fake Zionist regime will perish. There's no doubt about this.”
Though not mentioned in the Post’s article, the Ayatollah has also tweeted: “The elimination of the Zionist regime does not mean the massacre of the Jewish ppl. The ppl of Palestine should hold a referendum. Any political sys they vote for should govern in all of Palestine. The only remedy until the removal of the Zionist regime is firm, armed resistance.” At the time of writing, both tweets are still publicly available with no restrictions.
But the #KillTrump hashtag and tweet from the Ayatollah are not the only tweets the Post discussed. “There is a Twitter account that calls itself ‘Pigs In A Blanket, Fry Em Like Bacon,’ a call to kill police that is also found in myriad tweets,” noted the Post. “There is currently a tweet up from the day of the Capitol riots that reads[:] “I hope the Trumpers out there all die of Covid.”
Twitter’s hypocrisy goes further than just the tweets the Post mentioned, however. After Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were diagnosed with COVID-19 in October, Twitter allowed multiple tweets wishing harm or death upon the couple. The phrase “Hang Mike Pence” also trended on the platform following the suspension of Trump’s account.
The Post concluded that Twitter’s lack of enforcement on certain posts is endemic of a larger problem: “The point is that Twitter is a cesspool of threats of violence, but takes little notice unless they come from conservative voices that threaten their power and their bottom line.”
MRC President Brent Bozell tweeted in response to the Post’s article: “Twitter blatantly censors conservatives but allows calls for violence from leftists protestors and dictators. This is not about violence. It's about crushing conservatives and forcing us into ghettos.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Twitter at (415) 222-9670 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency and protections for exploited individuals abroad. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
