Conservative actor James Woods is furious in the wake of his ban from Twitter.
In an interview Sunday with The Associated Press, Woods describes the censorship that came his way last week stemming from a meme he shared on July 20. Although the tweet came with a description explaining the picture was a joke, Twitter locked the actor out of his account. (The normally active account hasn’t had anything new since Thursday.)
Despite the explicit description, Woods was told the post was “misleading,” and he would need to delete it before his account was restored.
Woods has refused to bend to censorship, and says he will not delete the tweet.
Other users have flocked to upload the picture that got Woods locked out, daring Twitter to do the same to them. So far, most of these posts have remained up.
This is the tweet that got James Woods locked out of Twitter. Think that’s fair?#FreeJamesWoods
????https://t.co/psWflKrEdZ pic.twitter.com/b8znJhD5ou— PragerU (@prageru) September 24, 2018
Woods was particularly disturbed by the way he was silenced, explaining that “having your voice smothered is much more disturbing than having your vocal chords slit.”
“If you want to kill my free speech, man up and slit my throat with a knife, don’t smother me with a pillow,” he said.
This isn’t the first censorship scandal for Twitter, just the most recent.
Earlier this month, the social media giant was exposed for a promotion of a tweet encouraging female genital mutilation while at the same time silencing pro-life voices. Conservative icons have also expressed frustration at the bias they suffer.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, has endured scrutiny in Washington, D.C. by lawmakers wanting to get to the bottom of bias accusations against the company. Although nothing concrete has come from these meetings, Dorsey had a chance to address concerns in person.
Dorsey even admitted his employees’ bias usually tilts to the left, although he says it does not affect the way the company operates.
Twitter recently joined other social media networks in what appeared like a coordinated ban of InfoWars and its host, Alex Jones.
Although many have agreed with the removal of Jones, most policies at Twitter seem to be arbitrarily enforced on those doing nothing wrong. Anti-white hate like that from New York TImes editorial board member Sarah Jeong is allowed to remain, while conservative voices are silenced for making jokes.
In his AP interview, Woods’ message was clear:
“Free speech is free speech — it’s not Jack Dorsey’s version of free speech.”
And he doesn’t think the censorship will end with him.
“This is about an American being silenced,” he told the AP. “One tweet at a time.”
Via WesternJournal
