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New report shows Twitter favoured Buhari after banning Trump
New report has shown that Twitter was not impartial to its content moderation as it relates to President Muhammadu Buhari and Donald Trump.
The Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, Elon Musk, had stated that he would reveal files on how Twitter moderated content before acquiring the social media company.
Some of these files have been released, and in the most recent published by Free Press founder, Bari Weiss, it showed that Twitter was biased when it came to world leaders.
Recall that Trump’s handle had been permanently banned from Twitter on January 8, 2021 over tweets that was labelled as inciting the public. Trump had been blamed for the United States Capitol riot.
Twitter breaches own policy, snubs probe conclusion
Musk had tweeted on January 8, 2021, “The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
He also wrote, “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
Following the tweet, Twitter announced that it had banned Trump, citing violence as a reason, but how did Twitter reach the decision?
The decision by Twitter is said to have breached its World Leaders policy, which states, “Our mission is to provide a forum that enables people to be informed and to engage their leaders directly,”
Twitter’s principle is to “protect the public’s right to hear from their leaders and to hold them to account.”
READ ALSO:Buhari’s ‘men’ return to Twitter after ban is lifted
Also, Twitter’s Policy Official, Anika Navaroli, revealed he doesn’t see “clear or coded incitement in the DJT tweet,” in an internal memo, and told executives at the firm that her team “Safety has assessed the DJT Tweet above and determined that there is no violation of our policies at this time.”
Despite the people in charge of content moderation ruling out violent incitement in the former President’s tweet and with its World Leaders’ policy, Twitter banned Trump, after the firm’s Head of Legal, Policy, and Trust, Vijaya Gadde, enquired if Trump‘s tweet could be viewed as “coded incitement to further violence.”
It was gathered that employees at Twitter were divided over the decision, but eventually, the company announced Trump’s permanent suspension “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
How Buhari comes into the Trump ban
Six months after Trump was permanently banned from Twitter, President Buhari posted a thread on the platform in June. Part of the tweet had been criticised by many Nigerians to incite violence against Biafra supporters.
The tweet reads; “Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war,” he wrote, “will treat them in the language they understand.”
Twitter didn’t clampdown on Buhari’s account as it did on Trump, it only deleted the tweet. The social media company didn’t ban Nigeria’s President.
Instead, two days later, the Nigerian government banned Twitter from operating in the country for allowing its platform to be used “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”
The ban on Twitter was later lifted in January 2022.
Aside from President Buhari, the social media firm had looked the other way when Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted in June 2018 that, “#Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor in the West Asian region that has to be removed and eradicated: it is possible and it will happen.” Khamenei’s tweet was not deleted, nor was he banned.
Also, the former Malaysian Prime Minister had tweeted that Muslims have the right to “kill millions of French people,” in October 2020. The tweet was deleted for “glorifying violence,” but the PM wasn’t banned.
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