Twitter’s Ethics: Rose McGowan Gets Suspended, Trump Doesn’t.
Terms of Harassment
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Rose McGowan got temporarily suspended from Twitter. Since the Weinstein news broke, McGowan has been a constant presence on the site, calling out powerful men for sexual harassment. The Times noted that
The actress Rose McGowan said in an Instagram post overnight that her Twitter account had been temporarily locked following a series of posts about Harvey Weinstein’s misconduct, including toward her. “TWITTER HAS SUSPENDED ME. THERE ARE POWERFUL FORCES AT WORK. BE MY VOICE,” Ms. McGowan wrote on her Instagram page, shortly after midnight Eastern time on Thursday. She included a snapshot of a message from Twitter saying she would only be able to send direct messages from her account unless she deleted tweets that violated Twitter rules. The screenshot announced a temporary freeze that prevented her from tweeting, retweeting or liking for 12 hours. Unlike a full suspension, this measure leaves her account visible.
Twitter responded:
The Tweet was removed and her account has been unlocked. We will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future. 2/3
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 12, 2017
Twitter is proud to empower and support the voices on our platform, especially those that speak truth to power. We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories, and will work hard every day to improve our processes to protect those voices. 3/3
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) October 12, 2017
As other commenters pointed out, this was, not to put too fine a point on it, bullshit. Trump threatened to bomb another country on Twitter, and that was just fine.
You attempted to silence a woman for speaking out against sexual assault while Nazis and white supremacists roam free without consequence.
— Jordan (@jordansdiamonds) October 12, 2017