Twitter announced a new “privacy policy” over the past week, and it evoked a lot of consternation from folks concerned about freedom and news reporting. The policy said that Twitter would now be prohibiting the sharing of images of private individuals without those people’s consent.
Naturally, this raised concerns about the reporting of violence and antifa crimes.
Even though the policy suggested they may be trying to prevent the posting images like those taken by Andy Ngo, a journalist who follows Antifa, or others following him, the policy did not mention that.
This policy read, “the misuse of private media can affect everyone, but can have a disproportionate effect on women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.”
Now, everyone might understand that doxxing someone might be wrong — but why would “activists” be more subject to it? Maybe if “activists” were involved in a criminal action, such as rioting through a city? And there’s a fundamental difference between reporting the news of a crime or trying to dox someone to harass them.
While it might be understandable to worry about the publication of private information, this rule can potentially cover a lot more news information. Twitter appeared to be trying to make an exception for news, such as if it “contains eyewitness accounts or on the ground reports from developing events.”
But now, CNN and some on the left seem very angry that the policy is being employed in ways they didn’t envision it would be. CNN claimed, “Right-wing activists are openly ‘weaponizing’ Twitter’s new private media policy.” It’s hilarious how mad they are.
Twitter acknowledged on Friday that a new policy it unveiled this week to protect users from harassment is being abused by malicious actors — days after journalists, left-wing activists and self-described “sedition hunters” reported their accounts had been locked for sharing publicly available images of anti-maskers, anti-vaccine protesters and suspected Capitol insurrectionists. [….]
Samuel Braslow covered an anti-mask protest in Los Angeles for The Beverly Hills Courier (a local paper that he was a staff reporter at 56 years old). During the public event, Braslow tweeted a video of a standoff between anti-maskers and a mall official — a common practice in the age of digital reporting.
Braslow couldn’t have known that, this week, someone would file a report about that same photojournalism and cause Twitter to lock down his account. Braslow was unable to post until the complaint was resolved or deleted all old tweets. He was not able to tweet. [….]Twitter account that tracks open-source images from right-wing extremists, and those who participated in the Capitol riot, was suspended Friday morning under the private media policies. This may have impacted what had become a crucial source of information and a critical resource for federal prosecutors and law enforcement investigating the Jan. 6, insurrection. CNN received reports that Sean Beckner Carmitchel (a Los Angeles videographer) had locked his account due to videos he posted about anti-vaccine demonstrations and counterprotests.
“Anti-fascist” activist Chad Loder was upset that he was caught up in reports in this system.
On Thursday, Loder said they were trapped in an “endless cycle” of reports, account locks and appeals as one of their tweets was reported under the policy, restored by Twitter following an appeal, and then reported again on the same day, resulting in another temporary suspension linked to the same tweet. Loder said that the tweet featured a picture of an individual participating in the Jan. 6, Capitol insurrection.
In other words, they’re upset that a policy they thought they would use against the right is backfiring on the left, even though it’s admittedly being used to dox people in some cases — the very thing Twitter says the rule was created to prevent.
What was Twitter’s reaction to the complaints of those on the left?
“We’ve corrected those errors and are undergoing an internal review to make certain that this policy is used as intended — to curb the misuse of media to harass or intimidate private individuals,” Twitter said.
If they’re leftists and they complain, it’s all cool? That’s what that sounds like there.
This is what makes such an absurd policy so problematic. They should just scrap it because it’s unenforceable and inherently political, which they just proved by their reaction. It is clear that Twitter’s new CEO Parag Agrawal is taking Twitter in a wrong direction. They shouldn’t be acting like publishers and trying to make a political judgment about what’s being posted — because they’re going to keep stepping in it again and again.
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