Jack is doing jack $#!% against White Supremacy.
Seth Rogen tried to use Twitter against its CEO, Jack Dorsey. Key word here: tried.
Twitter, as a private business, can take action against any speech, but does it want to? Lately, Twitter users have noticed that rhetoric of hate is rewarded with a blue check instead of a red x. Matt Binder wrote an article on Mashable about this issue Twitter users have against Twitter.
Long story short, Twitter updated its verification program over 10 months ago. According to Twitter, the new process includes a clause about “promoting hate and/or violence.” It would also remove the blue checks from verified accounts. Then why are there still so many white supremacists verified to this day?
Proud Boys is a designated hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group is also verified on Twitter and so is its founder, Gavin McInnes. Both Twitter accounts post tweets that are full of hatred and offensive to targeted minority communities and yet, nothing has been done about it.
Now it’s up to a celebrity to try and remedy the situation: Rogen reached out to Twitter’s CEO to talk about this issue earlier this year. After talking to Dorsey for months, Rogen tweeted that Dorsey just doesn’t care about it. (My version is cleaner than his.)
So, what happens now and what can we learn from this?
As a person who can’t stand this, I want to quit using Twitter like other users have. As a PR student, I know the importance of Twitter in public relations — especially since social media is a big part of my real-life job.
I’ve learned that I must recognize the issues that Twitter has and try my hardest not to perpetrate those issues on my own account (or the accounts that I handle). People, companies and groups on Twitter should do the same. This doesn’t mean taking a public stance on it, but just by not interacting or publicizing white supremacist accounts.
Rogen tweeting this is similar to this quote by David Schneider in a BBC article on social complaints:
“If you’re 29th in the queue on a phone call, only you know that. It’s you and the person who’s keeping you on hold. But if you tweet, it’s public and it could be picked up, and I think companies are very aware of that.”
A celebrity like Rogen with more than 7.63 million followers year-long issue back into the forefront. What should Twitter do now? What can Dorsey do now since there are other verified Twitter accounts are saying that he might be a white supremacist himself.
I think Twitter should start following their own rules and de-verifying white supremacists. I don’t think that’s a hard thing to do… but obviously the CEO of Twitter with a net worth of $6.3 billion thinks otherwise.
