Twitter Bans Actor James Woods for Quoting Emerson

P. Gardner Goldsmith | May 6, 2019
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Conservative actor James Woods has been sent to the Twitter “wood shed” for, according to Twitter, violating its rules, when it appears he has not.

In fact, what this appears to be is yet another case of Twitter antipathy for conservatives, for Trump supporters, for libertarians, and for anti-war activists. It also exhibits all the hallmarks of Twitter’s previous pattern of banning members of those aforementioned groups for Tweets that are far less offensive and contrary to Twitter rules than many nasty Tweets made by collectivists.

Justin Caruso reports for Breitbart:

James Woods, one of the few conservative stars in Hollywood, has been locked out of his Twitter account for over a week now for “abusive behavior,” once again demonstrating the double standard the tech giant holds when it comes to enforcing rules.

What did he say that was so offensive?

According to his girlfriend, Sara Miller, who Tweeted about it on April 20, he wrote: “‘If you try to kill the King, you best not miss’ #HangThemAll,” which, apart from the oblique hashtag, is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson later used in the television series, “The Wire”.

But, also according to Ms. Miller, Woods was banished from Twitter for at least a week, and sent this message:

Your account, @RealJamesWoods has been locked for violating the Twitter rules. Specifically for: Violating our rules against abusive behavior. You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. We consider abusive behavior an attempt to harass, intimidate, or silence someone else’s voice.

Yet, as anyone can see, Woods didn’t target any specific person, nor did he incite others to do so. Unless Twitter has a problem with understanding the singular from the plural, Mr. Woods appeared to be expressing vexation over something, and over a group of people, likely political in nature, but of the matter one cannot be certain.

This does not violate their stated rule.

But many anti-collectivists on the platform appear familiar with what seems to be a political bias on Twitter, and they have said that it executes its rules randomly, overlooks clear violations by collectivists, and seems to make things up in order to dump high-profile conservatives.

For example, Caruso notes:

Twitter allowed a number of verified accounts to participate in doxxing and violent threats against teenagers from Covington Catholic high school in January… Jim Carrey posted a drawing of Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. getting bludgeoned to death by an elephant last year. The tweet is still up.

Jorge Arenas reports for BoundingIntoComics that Nerdist, Sharktank, and Battle Bots producer Ben McShane sidled up to the Tweetdeck and applauded the violent attack on conservative/libertarian videogame reviewer Jeremy Hambly, writing:

I’m just relieved someone punched the Nazi.

For goodness sake. Not only is Hambly not a Nazi, McShane expanded on his encouragement of violent attacks with a pinned Tweet:

Hi fascists and fascist sympathizers! Have you found me because I’m glad a Nazi got punched? 1) I don’t owe you engagement. 2) Fascism, -gate misogyny, and racism pose an existential threat to my family, community, and country. 3) Public assault on Nazis is good and effective.

Twitter didn’t pluck him from their platform. He has deleted the posts, but his “protected” twitter feed is still up and running.

Then there’s “Blue-Check” Jack Morrissey, a Disney producer, and one of the high-profile Hollywood elites who went after the Covington Catholic High School students who’d just been accosted by a leftist American Indian. Apparently, Mr. Morrissey thought it would be appropriate to draw a picture of the kids being thrown into a wood chipper, and wrote:

#MAGAkids go screaming, hats first, into a woodchipper (sic).

He later claimed he was just kidding.

Take a wild guess as to whether Twitter kicked him off the platform.

As any person interested in supporting freedom will note, Twitter is a private company, if they want to give people like Mr. Woods the proverbial boot, they can.

But they tell users they have certain rules about how and why they will kick someone off. They claim they have standards.

Many of us, including Mr. Woods, are waiting to see when they will apply them equally.

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