Tom Elliott of Grabien Media is an invaluable source for video clips on Twitter. He’s been off for a week though, having been suspended for a joke about the efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine. He’s back now with an epic thread of what Twitter allows and what it doesn’t.
Oh, hey. It’s me! Just back from a one-week Twitter suspension for telling a joke.
Even as I didn’t break any Twitter rules, I’m actually glad this happened.
Why?
Because it proves everything @Twitter tells the public, the government, and its investors … is a lie. /1
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
First, let me explain what (ostensibly) led Twitter to suspend me. For those who didn’t hear me on w/ @DLoesch, last Monday I saw Andy Slavitt commenting on that day’s passing of Colin Powell. He said the lesson of his death was that everyone should get vaccinated. /2
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
I replied, as I’m sure many others were thinking, with a sarcastic joke that I won’t repeat here as jokes apparently violate community guidelines. (You can read it here if interested: https://t.co/ZERlhLs7aE) /3
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
The forbidden joke: “Get vaccinated, then you too can die of Covid.”
Incidentally, I've told this story IRL several times and whenever I get to the part about what I tweeted, the people I’m talking to start laughing. Seems only Twitter's humorless scolds can't take a joke. /4
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Within minutes, Twitter locked me out & told me to delete it. I did, believing this would enable me to return. However even after I deleted the offending tweet, I was told I couldn’t use tweet for a week. They put me in timeout for telling a joke the mods thought was mean. /5 pic.twitter.com/En2Y1k15RM
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Twitter claims I violated their rule against “abuse and harassment.” As anyone with common sense is already aware, that’s a lie; I never abused or harassed anyone. /6
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt), the supposed victim of my abuse, even sent me a DM stating he disagreed with me being suspended and that “sarcasm is the spice of Twitter.” (Thx Andy!) /7 pic.twitter.com/MTtFVAF4QQ
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Twitter claims people who think they’ve been wrongly suspended can appeal their verdict. This, too, is a lie. I appealed three separate times and never received a response. /8
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Obviously they didn't reply because there's no possible justification for suspending me. (Surely we all know my only real offense was exposing their own intellectual insecurities — and obviously they can't admit that publicly.) /9
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
After convicting me for violating a rule I never violated & denying me my supposed right to appeal, Twitter, upon reinstating me, adopted a Sovietesque technique of using earlier lies to justify new threats, claiming new “violations” may result in being permanently banned /10 pic.twitter.com/KToZ7gu6uA
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
For more on how this all fits into Twitter's pattern of lying, let's revisit @Jack's congressional testimony from last November. They're almost innumerable, but here are some of the biggest whoppers. /11
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. People from around the world come together on Twitter in an open and free exchange of ideas.” /12
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Reality: Twitter's purpose is to distort the public conversation. State actors exploit Twitter to launder propaganda while average Americans are censored for expressing mainstream opinions on issues like transgenderism. /13
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: Dorsey said in "short order" he would publish "moderation processes and practices, a straightforward process to appeal decisions, and best efforts around algorithmic choice."
Reality: None of this has happened. /14
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "Content moderation rules and their potential effects, as well as the process used to enforce those rules, should be simply explained and understandable by everyone … /15
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
… We believe that companies like Twitter should publish their moderation process. We should be transparent about how cases are reported and reviewed, how decisions are made, and what tools are used to enforce.”
Reality: None of this has been done. /16
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "We have worked to build better in-app notices where we have removed Tweets for breaking our Rules. We also communicate with both the account that reports a Tweet and the account that posted it with additional detail on our actions."
/17
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Reality: I can verify that the person whose account is affected is never offered "additional detail.” /18
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "Twitter is focused on advancing the principle of procedural fairness in our decision-making across the board … /19
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
… We strive to give people an easy, clear way to appeal decisions we make that they think are not right. Mistakes in enforcement — made either by a human or algorithm — are inevitable, and why we strive to make appeals easier.” /20
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Reality: Again, my situation shows Dorsey lied his face off before Congress. /21
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "Procedural fairness at Twitter also means we ensure that all decisions are made without using political viewpoints, party affiliation, or political ideology, whether related to automatically ranking content on our service or how we develop or enforce the Twitter Rules ../22
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
… Our Twitter Rules are not based on ideology or a particular set of beliefs. We believe strongly in being impartial, and we strive to enforce our Twitter Rules fairly.” /23
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Reality: Views-based outcomes is literally the only possible explanation for why accounts like mine are suspended for telling jokes while accounts like @Jezebel, which use Twitter to recruit people for abusing & harassing specific individuals remain online & in good standing /24
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "The machine learning teams at Twitter are studying these techniques and developing a roadmap to ensure our present and algorithmic models uphold a high standard when it comes to transparency and fairness.” /25
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Reality: There are no Twitter standards for "transparency and fairness," let alone "high standards.” /26
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "We will produce a longer-form retrospective of all of our work around the 2020 US Election in early 2021 …” /27
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Reality: No such report was ever published. They tilted the playing field toward their preferred candidate; once he was safely ensconced in office, they moved on as if nothing had happened. /28
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "Twitter banned all political advertising in 2019, only allowing some cause-based advertising for non-partisan civic engagement, in line with our belief that the reach of political speech should be earned, not bought.” /29
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Reality: Twitter accepts money from advertisers they're politically aligned with (see here, for example: https://t.co/uL4UZpI7k2) /30
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Lie: "We applied labels to add context and limit the risk of harmful election misinformation spreading without important context because the public told us they wanted us to take these steps.” /31
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Reality: The "public" never said this. While Twitter users do offer Dorsey lots of suggestions for fixing this poorly constructed & poorly managed platform, Dorsey ignores it all to instead focus on his preferred hobby of helping progressives win the information wars. /32
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
After this testimony, in which Dorsey repeatedly promised unprecedented transparency, he soon began mass purging hundreds of thousands of accounts. Prominent conservative accounts like mine lost upwards of a third of our followers (I lost at least 30,000 followers). /33
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
At no point did Twitter publicly disclose their criteria for blacklisting accounts. For all his talk of "transparency," Dorsey always cowardly conducts his blacklisting & censorship in the shadows. /34
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
While toiling away in Twitter jail, the folks at Gettr asked me to start posting there. I did (my handle: https://t.co/KtspE6hqGj)'; I appreciate its commitment to free speech, but the problem is a) there aren't many features that set it apart & more importantly … /35
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
b) platforms like Gettr, Gab, and Parler are only used by a slice of society. Social networks are only interesting when issues can actually be examined and debated from all perspectives. /36
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
You'll never see a post on Gettr getting "ratio'ed," as that can't happen unless a multitude of ideas is able to coexist. /37
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
The one actual value Twitter has is that it’s the platform used by public officials, government agencies, celebrities, etc., to interface directly with the public (a role sadly no longer handled by newspapers). /38
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Recognizing platforms like Twitter operate as a public forum, Congress grants liability protection to sites like Twitter through Section 230, meant to inoculate platforms from content-driven liability. /39
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
While Dorsey's made clear Twitter depends on Section 230, his company egregiously flouts the whole point of the law. Rather than facilitating interaction, Twitter — alongside Google & Facebook — increasingly make editorial decisions over what appears on their networks /40
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
In Twitter's case, censoring jokes they don't like while promoting left-wing content it loves. When Twitter does this, it explicitly acts as a publisher. /41
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
In this way, Twitter is both shielded from liability while also able to manipulate the flow of information, and thus perverting the entire national discourse. /42
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
This is especially egregious as their manipulation of content creates a false impression of contemporary social opinion. You can't have an honest conversation about the future of women's sports when only one side of the issue is allowed to partake. /43
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
And that's Twitter's biggest lie of all. Far from being some disinterested, neutral 3rd party, today's iteration of Twitter exists specifically to undermine its supposed core purpose. /44
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Rather than letting ideas compete on their own merits in an open arena — the very thing we can credit for the gradual birth of Western Civilization — Twitter is forever trying to trip up one side while offering aid and assistance to the other. /45
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Some ideas, Twitter says, are valid and correct; others, unfortunately, are wrong and "unsafe"; with this Silicon Valley Newspeak, Twitter tries shaping popular opinion in the mould of its most vocal, far-left users. /46
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Don't believe me?
Here are but a few recent examples. /47
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
While I was suspended for making a joke about Slavitt's lazy argument, he was himself tweeting far more abusive and harassing comments about a GOP governor, casually accusing him of manslaughter & likening him to a "disease." Of course, his accounts remains in good standing /48 pic.twitter.com/XmgsFKaGts
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Conversely, my British friend told me yesterday his mother was suspended for saying she opposes mandating kids get vax'ed against Covid. This is a completely ordinary opinion any parent has a right to hold — & yet because Twitter deems it the "wrong" opinion, she's suspended /49
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Back in the progressive column, @Jezebel, as alluded to above, literally used Twitter to recruit people into abuse & harassment. (As they have common enemies w/ Twitter execs … no issue!) /50 pic.twitter.com/TiUE1MMvoU
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Meanwhile, a conservative congressman, Rep. Jim Banks, was temporarily banned for echoing an opinion shared by a majority of Americans. /51 pic.twitter.com/lHCtFGAVmU
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
As we reported, Rep. Jim Banks was put in Twitter jail for referring to Admiral Rachel Levine as a man.
Back on the left, the 1619 Project's Nikole Hannah-Jones used Twitter to recruit her 500,000+ followers into harassing a journalist for reporting on her. Of course, Twitter simply looked the other away. /52 https://t.co/3KhZGpm9AC
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
OTOH, if you express one of the basic lessons of Biology 101, Twitter will abort your account. /53 pic.twitter.com/tf4PDGWdhq
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
China's totalitarian communist government uses Twitter to launder its propaganda and coverup its slave trade. "Cool with us!" says Twitter. /54 pic.twitter.com/VIReHtqAzh
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
But if you mock China's dictator, Twitter will help you see your way out. /55 pic.twitter.com/XEce5sf66L
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
When BLM supporters circulated a fake tweet alleging the Chicago Police Department celebrated the killing of George Floyd, Twitter deemed it within the bounds of their impressively flexible “rules” /56 pic.twitter.com/ATGSROx0c2
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
But when a reporter shared an article that embarrassed the BlackLivesMatter movement, he was falsely accused of sharing private information & locked out /57 https://t.co/BL0MqvBkIT
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Beyond its hypocritical application of "rules," Twitter, more destructively, actively sabotages the scientific debate and discussion upon which new understandings depend. /58
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
When the journal Science published an article detailing encouraging data on natural immunity, Twitter prevented its users from sharing it /59 https://t.co/9Tj0rP9uaD
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Here a tweet that simply graphed raw data was smacked with a "misleading” label /60 https://t.co/OYhilM5Tti
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Well-credentialed scientists who challenge the prevailing orthodoxy have found themselves locked out of the debate /61 https://t.co/VreInRKxR5
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Twitter's behavior with respect to Covid appears premised on protecting the powerful at the expense of the people. Last year my account was likewise suspended after I criticized Gov. Cuomo for withholding vaccines to NYC's senior citizens. /63
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Twitter, familiarly, claimed my criticism was "abuse and harassment." Ergo Twitter manipulated its platform to protect its favored politicians even as doing so meant risking needless death and despair. /64 https://t.co/77OmiXIDOm
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
The reason Twitter doesn't just admit its platform is now basically premised on helping progressives win the culture wars is that they're blinded by their own ego and hubris. They actually believe their opinions are Truth. /65
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
This is how @Jack can brag about trying to create "healthy conversation" while simultaneously sending a $10 million check to an openly racist personality like @DrIbram and not even realize his obvious hypocrisy. /66 pic.twitter.com/qpmqkR1sTB
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
In their zeal to "change the world," these Big Tech charlatans lack the humility to realize the limits of their own intellect. /67
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
A social media company anointing itself an arbiter of truth is so self-evidently preposterous only those actively uninterested in objectively provable facts could fail to see it. /68
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
So, to try and quickly summarize … If I'm suspended again, just know it will have nothing to do w/ my usual sarcastic humor and everything to do with truth-telling threads like this one. /69 [nice]
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
P.S. Before wrapping this obscenely long megarant, I want to thank those who brought attention to my suspension — specifically @MZHemingway, @karol, @davereaboi, @newsbusters, @DavidRutz @ @FoxNews & @DLoesch /70
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
Ironically while Twitter tried silencing me they inadvertently helped me gain almost 3,000 followers while being locked out. Thanks for your help, @Twitter! /fin
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 26, 2021
— 💀🎃🧛♂️ Ghoul Cat ❤️🔥 (@neorecusant) October 26, 2021
Related:
Rep. Jim Banks put in Twitter jail for calling Admiral Rachel Levine a man in a tweet https://t.co/wCMB1SCeHy
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) October 23, 2021
