Twitter Shows Remarkable Double Standard on Hate Speech

Twitter has shown a remarkable double standard when it comes to removing actual hate speech from it’s site. Recently, the anti-Semitic Rev. Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, stated in one of his sermons that the Jewish people were termites. The video was subsequently posted to his Twitter account and the Twitter account of the Nation of Islam reposted Farrakhan’s original tweet. 

Everyone should be able to agree that referring to Jewish people as termites is hate speech. In fact, even Facebook, which has certainly had its fair share of censoring conservative content on the grounds of violations of community standards, removed the video on October 18th. But not Twitter. 
The social media platform told Buzzfeed on October 17 that “Louis Farrakhan’s tweet comparing Jews to termites is not in violation of the company’s policies. The policy on dehumanizing language has not yet been implemented.”

In previous sermons, Farrakhan has said, “Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit.”  In February 2018, he also said, “Powerful Jews are my enemy.”

According to Newsbusters, Facebook told The Wrap, “Farrakhan refers to Jews as termites, which amounts to Tier 1 hate speech.” In addition, the violation apparently “placed a strike” on Farrakhan’s account.

However, Twitter still has done nothing about the inflammatory video, and the original video is still up on Farrakhan’s Twitter account. This is the same Twitter that has constantly and continually banned conservative tweets on the slightest grounds. It’s important that Twitter be held accountable for its inconsistent policies.