CENSORSHIP: Twitter

Image source: http://www.joeybarton.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/twitter-is-censored.png

Twitter, founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey to be a simple social media platform that was no different than text messaging. In the past decade Twitter has evolved in two ways; one way, the platform took off and is much more complex with a few make overs here and there. The other way is, political correctness and censorship, which can be the same thing at times.

Twitter once had a bright prosperous future ahead of them, users growing and flurrying with innovation, and then in November 2013 Twitter went public. If you pay attention to the markets, and to Twitter's stock, you'd see it's been a big bust. Since 2013, the stock barely gained and commonly, more recently, loses. Why is that?

It appears Twitter peaked quicker than anyone would have thought, there was only so much that could be done with Twitter that too much was getting done to upgrade it, when there wasn't a demand for that. Twitter also jumped into the realm of political correctness and social justice, which hasn't been helping their brand at all, now it gets cheers from the left and real victims of cyber bullying, but that does not represent the platform of Twitter.

The censorship game all started when Twitter started suspending conservative accounts in July 2016, with the biggest one being @Nero owned by Milo Yiannopoulos for insulting SNL's Leslie Jones for her Ghostbusters role. Whatever happened to using Twitter's own blocking and muting functions? If someone is insulting you or bullying you via Twitter, block or mute them, they go away. It's clear Leslie's ego was bigger, which is way her and Jack Dorsey talked personally and had Milo banned from Twitter for life. Read the full story from Breitbart, click the red B.

Image source: https://img.rt.com/files/2016.02/original/56b391c3c361881e7f8b4618.jpg

More recently, the infamous "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli was suspended earlier this month for "harassment". Read more about that from CBS News . Again, why can't anyone use the block or mute functions, specifically designed to give the user power on who can talk to them. Twitter was created so everyone can come on and share what they are doing, thinking, whatever they want to post, but the recent political climate has changed all that big time.

Today, according to the Daily Caller, Twitter announced they are developing tools to prevent users from saying "hateful" things on Twitter. Is that ridiculous or what? Twitter is purely restricting speech, and spitting on the 1st Amendment, sadly Twitter doesn't have to follow the 1st Amendment because businesses can create their own policies. It's just very sad, Twitter is doing this, and one couldn't even guess how it'll benefit their bottom line and their stock value.

Rumors have been floating around that Twitter may be bought, and with they way the company is going that may be truth in the near future. According to Fortune companies like Google, Disney, and Salesforce could be the ones to purchase the platform. Just two weeks ago Twitter sold their developing platform Fabric to Google, per Business Insider. That transaction could be the signal to something, but with Google buying it, don't expect censorship and political correctness to go away.

It seems as if Jack Dorsey really doesn't care for his company, but for the cause he's fighting for using his social media platform as a tool. In 2016 a number of top executives fled the company and that signals a problem within a company. Per Recode, here is a list of those who left Twitter in 2016:

Notice the amount of Vice Presidents who left. That triggers the alarms for investors and even consumers, but more so investors because they have money invested within the company. Again, Jack Dorsey seems not to care about Twitter's shareholders or stakeholders for that matter, but only cares about his social justice cause. It's reflected from many conservative accounts being purged, political incorrect accounts being purged, and the company developing ways to censor tweets.

If you check Twitter's settings, go to "Privacy and content", you'll see "Show me sensitive media" which is a setting where you can either see or not see photos or video that may be sensitive according to Twitter. If you go to the "Notifications" settings, you'll find "Quality Filter" and "Muted words". The "Quality Filter" is supposed to improve the quality of Tweets you see. The "Muted words" setting is literally designed for a user to type in any word(s), and any tweet that contain that word, or words, will not appear on your timeline. Apparently Twitter isn't stopping there, as stated above from the Daily Caller article, Twitter is taking steps to prevent tweets from being posted all together. That is some serious 1984 Orwellian stuff right there. One a quick note, Facebook is working with China on censorship, and have been caught censoring conservative news on their platform.

It's just sad, a social media network that had such potential and looked very promising is now failing. They're failing due to internal incompetence and censorship, Jack Dorsey let political correctness sway the way Twitter does business. TWTR will lose more than it gains, and soon Twitter will be bought by a company, and only God knows where Twitter will go from there. If the buyers are smart, they'll bring Twitter back to its roots, and promote freedom of speech for all and forever.

Here is Milo Yiannopoulos giving Twitter a funeral (Start video at 30 minutes in):