As we’ve seen time and time again, SJWs can’t help themselves. Twitter’s most recent attempt to play publisher and manage its trends appears likely to backfire in the near future:
It’s important to note exactly what’s happening here, Twitter is choosing a subject to trend and making a values judgment about why that subject is trending. That’s the very essence of being a publisher. They are publishing their own opinion.
Twitter is saying, “Jason Whitlock opens himself up to criticism after making sexist comments about ESPN hosts.”
I added the bold language because it’s important for all of you to see.
Look at what’s going on here, Twitter is directly deciding what to trend and then making a values judgment about what was said. They are sharing their opinions. You (hopefully) read the columns. Did Whitlock treat anyone in those columns any different than he has countless men, athletes or media figures, he has ripped for decades? In my opinion, of course not.
But maybe you disagree.
That’s fine, that’s your right.
You are entitled to publish your opinion on your website or your social media feeds and be responsible for what you say. And if you do that, you’re being held to a different standard than the platform you write on because you are the content creator. Twitter’s distributing your content to the masses and claiming they aren’t responsible for it, all while monetizing their entire business on opinions. The more people who have opinions all day long, the more money the content platforms make. (Which is why they’re all created to seduce us into caring so much about likes and retweets and attention).
But here’s the deal, Twitter isn’t behaving as a content neutral company in any way when some anonymous person we don’t know who works at Twitter is labeling Whitlock’s opinions sexist. They are directly making a determination about content that they deem objectionable and then featuring it prominently on their website. All in an effort to try and punish the person who has stepped outside the bounds of what they deem to be an acceptable opinion.
Twitter is directly impacting the marketplace of ideas in this country while claiming they aren’t involved at all. They are pretending to be content neutral when in reality they are making a calculated and direct decision to be engaged in editorial content. They are picking sides and claiming to be neutral.
Why does that matter?
Because if you are in the editorial business, you are subject to lawsuits for those opinions you share. If you’re a platform, you aren’t.
So who at Twitter decided Jason Whitlock’s comments were “sexist?” We have no idea. If I had to guess, it was probably someone working in Twitter’s trending topics division but that’s only a guess. In reality, who is that person or persons? What are their biases? Why did they try to slide in their opinion on this topic and hope no one would notice? Why did they decide to make this a trending topic? And most importantly how can Twitter claim to be an unbiased content platform when they make clear editorial decisions such as these?
Those are all fascinating questions.
Which I’m sure Jason Whitlock will be interested in discussing on Thursday of this week.
When he testifies in front of Congress about content discrimination from tech companies.
It’s LONG past time to end the platform/publisher dance these companies have been permitted to play. They must be forced to choose one or the other. If you want to edit beyond the direct requirements of the law, you have to take responsibility. If you don’t want to take responsibility, then you don’t get to edit.
Twitter has taken an official stance that all public criticism of women, no matter how valid, is intrinsically sexist. If you want to know what a feminist society would look like, now you know.