Twitter’s Catastrophe

As a favored source for news, Twitter ignored its self declared duties and principles, in order to respect certain wishes of loved ones.

The removal of Foley’s beheading video of Twitter respects Foley, his family and his campaign supporters. All of which were the most prominent beneficiaries. Anyone with a heart would understand why his friends and family wanted that in the first place. In addition, this benefits those who want to stop Isis’s influence and power, who intended to terrorize the world. Moreover, the removal of the video supports national policies and the global war on terror.

However, those whose accounts were deleted after sharing the link to that video were harmed. Freedom of speech was highly ignored, and Twitter’s promises were broken, Since they put the interests of loved ones above all, even though twitter has a self-proclaimed commitment for freedom of speech. The choice for other users to watch the video or not was also snatched away by Twitter.

Twitter was unprofessional and biased, since it did not leave users to decide for themselves if they want to watch the video or not. Not allowing users to Speak for themselves, if they want to watch the video or not, is highly contradicting for Twitter’s policies and duties. There was no fair balance between free speech and the emotional needs of Foley’s friends and family. Even though that video can never be removed 100 % of the internet weither we like it or not, Such a video can not even be forgotten if an individual watched it before it was removed, due to its graphic content. Removing the video would not make such immense conflicts disappear in our world.

All this issue could have been simply avoided if Twitter abided by its policies. Twitter could have been just and understood both sides of the story. Putting in mind that we all have a say in what goes around in our world.