On February 5th, CBC News Alerts tweeted a misleading article regarding the shooting of a palestinian teenager by the IDF:
A pro-Israel tweeter responded with a factual tweet: the teenager had thrown a firebomb at IDF troops, and palestinians have responded with violence to the Trump Peace Plan. For her efforts, she got locked out of her account for 10 hours and was made to delete her tweet.
This should highlight just how problematic Twitter has become. Let’s analyse what has happened here.
A Twitter account puts out a misleading tweet that suggests Israel shot someone just protesting. In response, someone corrects the factual error with something that has even been widely reported. The factual, response tweet is said to be “promoting violence violence against, threatened or harassed other people”, and the person is “punished” by Twitter.
If any tweeter was doing what the pro-Israel tweeter was accused of doing, it was CBC News Alerts, because such misleading or false news items actually incite hatred against Jews and the Jewish state.
Clearly Israel-haters did not like the correction tweet, and reported it en masse. That can and does happen. What is inexcusable is Twitter’s response.
How many times have we seen really hateful, even antisemitic tweets and Twitter accounts kept up, despite being reported?
Twitter really does have a problem.
Update: By the way, this is what a soldier being hit by a firebomb/Molotov Cocktail looks like.
Anyone throwing such potentially lethal devices is not peacefully protesting, and their neutralization is completely justified.
