I’ve said it before: I find this highly disturbing. Especially the sense in which it is coordinated. Amazon, Google and Apple acting together to shut down a platform that has been very clear about its stance on content moderation from the outset. Free speech is not just any value. Sooner or later you will find yourself on the side of an issue where your speech will be attacked. Then there is the always present double…
Thus is a brilliantly good question!
My big takeaway from reading Twitter’s blog behind Trump’s suspension is that the words of a tweet themselves are not particularly deterministic of policy violation or enforcement. What seems to be the clincher is the _interpretation_ and their _real world effect_. For example, Trump’s recent tweets taken collectively _and_ the effect of his supporters’ March on the capitol were starkly different than the “hang mike pence” or the women’s March (for example’s sake) that happened a few years ago on the capitol.
In both the latter cases, there is no credible threat of real world violence. Similarly, “Hang Mike Pence” tweets have no predictable certainty to cause any harm to Mike Pence or anyone in the political community the same way Trump’s tweets about skipping Biden’s inauguration (and therefore being a good target to attack by his supporters etc etc), OTHOH, are.
Twitter’s blog obviously has more context and better explanation.
What I’m trying to say is that, it seems like _interpretation_ of tweets & _determination of real world effects_ is what leads to policy enforcement. Of course, that is susceptible to human judgment and error. But I don’t think it rooted in coordinated outright bias against conservative voices.