Don’t Quit Twitter

Don’t Quit Twitter

Amid the last few days’ legitimate furor over Twitter apparently censoring conservative opinions, some conservatives have vowed to quit the medium in protest.  That is a mistake.

Legal Insurrection’s previous coverage of Twitter’s banning author Robert Stacy McCain and de-authenticating Milo Yiannopoulos – both noted critics of extreme feminism – is here and here.  Reason and The Federalist have also picked up the story.

As Robby Soave wrote at Reason:

Twitter is a private company, of course, and if it wants to outlaw strong language, it can. In fact, it’s well within its rights to have one set of rules for Robert Stacy McCain, and another set of rules for everyone else. It’s allowed to ban McCain for no reason other than its bosses don’t like him. If Twitter wants to take a side in the online culture war, it can. It can confiscate Milo Yiannopoulos’s blue checkmark. This is not about the First Amendment.

But if that’s what Twitter is doing, it’s certainly not being honest about it—and its many, many customers who value the ethos of free speech would certainly object. In constructing its Trust and Safety Council, the social media platform explicitly claimed it was trying to strike a balance between allowing free speech and prohibiting harassment and abuse. But its selections for this committee were entirely one-sided—there’s not a single uncompromising anti-censorship figure or group on the list. It looks like Twitter gave control of its harassment policy to a bunch of ideologues, and now their enemies are being excluded from the platform.

Robert Tracinski wrote a concise legal backgrounder on the development of free speech on the internet and the practical implications.  His analysis is worth the time for a full, considered read.

Doing him a disservice in trying to summarize, Tracinski correctly concludes that Twitter’s assertion of its legal, legitimate and essentially absolute power to dictate who may do and say what on its platform is a more or less inevitable mistake.

Tracinski concludes with five recommendations: 1) Create objective rules so “anyone can predict what will qualify as abuse;” 2) give more tools to users, beyond the mute and block options; 3) replace the Orwellian “Trust and Safety Council” with “an ideologically diverse group;” 4) Fire CEO Jack Dorsey, and; 5) get actual liberals to advocate actual free speech.

Why Conservatives Shouldn’t Leave Twitter

Despite Twitter’s shady dealings, conservatives should not leave twitter for several reasons.  The present dust-up itself is the first: if conservatives leave, nobody will be around to expose Twitter’s duplicity.  McCain’s banishment and Yiannoupolos’s de-verification created a groundswell, but if they didn’t use the medium, Twitter’s Ministry of Truth would still be operating in the shadows.

Second, along the same lines, if conservatives abandon Twitter, it just cedes the territory to liberals, again.  In the past, that has not turned out well.  Conservatives disgusted and fed-up with liberal excess fled academia, creating an echo chamber where extremism is lauded for its own sake.  After three generations or so, students and campus administrations now conspire to formalize insulating students from conservative thought under the guise of “safe spaces” and speech codes.

Don’t let Twitter or other social media go down that road.  For good or ill, these venues have vast audiences.  What is the benefit of only exposing them to a far left message?  Conservative thought properly packaged and expressed resonates because of its essential truths.  So, put those ideas out where the most people we be exposed to them.

Third, using Twitter frankly doesn’t make Twitter or its shareholders any money.  Twitter’s stock is off almost 35 points and around 60% in around ten months, largely because it doesn’t monetize its user base.  Using the service and not clicking advertisements, or purchasing advertisements or sponsored links imposes additional costs on the company in equipment and services personnel without providing any actual revenue.

Fourth, again building on the previous points, quitting Twitter just won’t work.  It didn’t work in academia, where the Left gleefully inculcated generations without the hassle of addressing dissenting opinion or contrary facts.  It won’t effect Twitter, which started this by censoring conservatives and for now has no real financial stake in whether or not conservatives use the site.

Finally, quitting Twitter is something the liberal, social justice warrior, safe spacers would do.  It’s taking your ball and going home.  It’s the easy way out.  It’s letting the Left win; letting them force conservatives out of another place they are entitled to be.

So Twitter is being a bully and not letting conservatives speak their minds.  Twitter is being unfair, obstinate, deceptive and manipulative.  Twitter is erecting a facade behind which to hide its base repression of ideas it, its constituents, its advisers, board members and buddies find distasteful.

All the more reason for a prominent Hollywood conservative like Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) to tweet like mad about Twitter’s own lies.  Make the arguments and let as many people as possible see them.  If he’s lucky, maybe he’ll get banned and it will make even more news.

Tracinski’s recommendations are a good place to start, but one stands out.  Get liberals on board, or at least make the effort to recruit them.  Free speech is the sine qua non of classical Liberalism, and Twitter picking ideological sides should not be a partisan issue.  Offer Liberals the opportunity to show their free speech bona fides and let them either get on board or instead show their repressive instincts.

Yes, follow Jonathan Levin on Twitter @JNLevin

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