By: V4 Agency
After the party had published statistics on migrant crime, Twitter’s censors suspended its account citing hate speech. As online censorship by social media giants has become more brazen following the US presidential race, many countries are calling for joint action.
Whereas anti-Semitic language is considered acceptable, statistics are considered hate speech, according to Twitter.
The popular social media platform has repeatedly censured Spain’s conservative VOX party, this time for speaking out against the ruling socialist government. Santiago Abascal’s party wanted to initiate social dialogue on the fact that Islamisation is spreading at an extraordinary rate, and that the government is turning a blind eye to the growing crime rate linked to people of immigrant background.
Since the government launched a smear campaign on traditional media to discredit VOX, the party has been trying to respond on social media. In a tweet, for example, they quoted statistics regarding crimes committed by migrants in Catalonia and the Canary Islands and wrote, “although these groups make up 0.2 per cent of the population, 93 per cent of complaints and claims involve them.” Twitter reacted immediately by notifying the party that certain features of its account had been suspended for hate speech, arguing that such “hateful” behaviour is contrary to its terms of use.
On his own, personal social media account, VOX chief Santiago Abascal dewcribed it as ironic that when the government-funded mainstream media launches a smear campaign against VOX, Twitter censors the party’s account, denying it a platform for responding to allegations.
Although Twitter appears to pounce instantly on such “hatred and hate speech”, it is outright tolerant of countless profiles sharing anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi content under hashtags such as “#BurntheJews”, or “#heilHitler”. Last year, however, the social media giant was forced to apologise for enabling ads micro-targeting neo-Nazis and Islamophobic groups.
Hashtags like #heilhitler and “#BurnTheJews” are just some of the key words used in posts and shared with apparent impunity by many on Twitter,…
An increasing number of countries are starting to take action against the ever more brazen online censorship. Poland, for instance, has drafted legislation to prevent social media providers from censuring content that is not illegal, and Hungary has established an investigative committee to submit proposals for a common EU regulation.