Horowitz Responds to Twitter's Decision To Re-Suspend Him: They Are 'Incompetent' and 'Dangerous'
Conservative activist David Horowitz responded to Twitter’s decision to re-suspend his account after first lifting the suspension on Tuesday night, claiming it was a “mistake.”
Horowitz had first been suspended from Twitter allegedly after replying to a tweet by Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Horowitz tweeted he had protested his suspension Tuesday morning and had “received an email from Twitter saying it was a ‘mistake’ and unsuspending me,” The Washington Times reported.
“I responded to a tweet by Omar in which she blamed Israel for the 700 Hamas/Iranian rockets fired on civilians in Israel and called on the U.S. to withdraw its support from Israel,” Horowitz texted Libertarian commentator David Rubin.
“My offending comment followed: ‘Oh, and then we get on with killing more Jews.’ This was deemed a hateful comment against an individual although it actually wasn’t.”
Been texting with David Horowitz. Here’s why he got suspended. Interestingly Hamas is still on Twitter… pic.twitter.com/yG2cqpp0w0
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) May 7, 2019
After Horowitz’s account was temporarily unsuspended, he responded to a tweet that had noted, “It is amazing that ‘glitches’ always occur with people on the right. Never the left.”
“I don’t believe it was a glitch,” Horowitz replied.
It is amazing that “glitches” always occur with people on the right. Never the left
— Coach Hal (@LifeSaverNREMTP) May 7, 2019
While working on the story of Horowitz’s initial suspension, The Western Journal noticed that his account seemed to have been suspended again and reached out to Horowitz for comment.
“Twitter’s decision to re-suspend me for the same ‘infraction’ they admitted yesterday was a ‘mistake’ on their part, and attributed to a ‘confusion’ over spam, shows how incompetent and stupid they are… and therefore how dangerous,” Horowitz wrote in a Wednesday email to The Western Journal.
And @horowitz39 has been suspended again. pic.twitter.com/djkgohkaWf
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) May 8, 2019
“I was targeted because I am a conservative, and the leftist programmers for the tech giants are totalitarians who want to smear and suppress people who disagree with them,” he added.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Horowitz’s account is back up.
Twitter has recently come under scrutiny for its alleged anti-conservative bias.
In March, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and one of his top executives were grilled over the enforcement of hate speech rules that seem driven by a left-leaning ideology at the expense of those with opposing viewpoints exercising their First Amendment rights.
Dorsey and Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s global lead for public safety, often found themselves on the defensive while appearing as guests on the highly popular “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast.
“Twitter is slowly gaining, in my opinion, too much control from your personal ideology, based on what you’ve researched is right, over American discourse,” independent journalist Tim Pool told Dorsey and Gadde.
Dorsey conceded that Twitter does make ideological choices, but the company is looking to broaden its perspective by decentralizing its workforce out of the San Francisco area.
Late last month, Dorsey met with President Donald Trump at the White House, where the chief executive reportedly pressed him on the social media’s platforms anti-conservative bias.
Trump had criticized Twitter in a pair of tweets, saying “they don’t treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on. Constantly taking people off list. Big complaints from many people. Different names-over 100 M.”
“The best thing ever to happen to Twitter is Donald Trump.” @MariaBartiromo So true, but they don’t treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on. Constantly taking people off list. Big complaints from many people. Different names-over 100 M…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 23, 2019
“But should be much higher than that if Twitter wasn’t playing their political games,” he added. “No wonder Congress wants to get involved — and they should. Must be more, and fairer, companies to get out the WORD!”
The Twitter account for the movie “Unplanned” was suspended during its opening weekend in March, which Twitter blamed on a rules enforcement error.
The film’s co-director and co-writer Chuck Konzelman testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee last month, when Twitter did reinstate the account, the number of followers dropped from approximately 200,000 to less than 200.
Konzelman warned the “Unplanned” experience shows just how vulnerable the right to exercise free speech is during the digital era.
“It is all too easy (for tech companies) to label conservative thought as controversial or divisive. Dismiss it as contrary to their guidelines or roll out the dreaded phrase: ‘hate speech,’” he said.
“In the digital age, exclusion from a platform is not just discriminatory, it is the most insidious form of censorship available or imaginable.”
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