Opinion
San Francisco, CA –-(Ammoland.com)- Twitter has suspended prominent gun-rights activist and researcher, John R. Lott Jr over a Tweet about the New Zealand mass murder that killed a group of Muslims as they attended Mosque.
Lott is the founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC). The CPRC is a registered non-profit that researches the relationship between laws regulating guns and gun ownership and crime. He is the author of nine books including “More Guns, Less Crime,” “The Bias Against Guns,” and “Freedomnomics.” and others. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA.
When Lott logged onto Twitter, the platform greeted him with a message stating that one of his Twitter posts violated the company’s rules although the social media platform did not list and the exact reason why the Tweet violated their terms of service. The tech giant hasn’t responded to Lott’s appeal as of this writing.
.@Twitter locked @JohnRLottJr‘s account for tweeting about the NZ mosque killer. The killer’s manifesto does state he did the attack b/c it would lead to more gun control & he is a socialist, environmentalist, who hates capitalist & free trade.
details:https://t.co/g6tNi8e2j5 pic.twitter.com/pIVtBmMLXk— CrimeResearch (@CrimeResearch1) July 3, 2019
The Tweet that Twitter flagged was from March 15th of this year. It is unclear whether the tweet was flagged manually or by machine learning. Google has come under fire recently for a Project Veritas Investigation that showed the tech giant allegedly rigging their algorithmic software to help left-wing presidential candidates. Since this Tweet is almost four months old it seems likely this was flagged manually.
To be able to post again, Twitter requires that Lott deletes the offending post. Lott told AmmoLand that removing the Tweet is something he is not willing to consider. He is asking everyone to retweet the screenshots that the CPRC shared on their Tweeter feed and Tweet at Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, and Twitter Support.
Twitter claims that they do not use political affiliation when enforcing their rules. That is at odds with their actions such as when Twitter removes groups like the Proud Boys, but organizations like Rose City Antifa, the group that attacked police and journalist in Portland, OR last weekend, still are free to use the platform to organize their violent protest.
When AmmoLand News reached out to Twitter to see why the company decided to ban the Proud Boys but let Rose City Antifa operate on their site, Director for Global Policy Communications, Ian Plunkett, stated that the Marxist group was “not currently in violation of our policies.”
Twitter did not give AmmoLand News an exact reason why Lott’s account was locked, but in the statement that Twitter gave to AmmoLand, it seems like the Social Media company is accusing Lott of glorifying violence.
The statement given to AmmoLand by Twitter reads:
“We don’t comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons, but for background, it’s against our policies to share content that glorifies violence on Twitter, including directly linking to that information. Additionally, we enforce the Twitter Rules impartially for all users, regardless of their background or political affiliation.”
AmmoLand’s follow up questions to Twitter about how exactly Lott’s Tweet glorified violence were not returned. The company also did not explain how his Tweet differs from reports by NBC, CBS, New York Times, various other news organization. Lott’s Tweet was factually accurate and easily verifiable.
As of now, Twitter still has Lott’s account lock although readers can see screenshots of the Tweet on the CPRC’s Twitter Feed.
About John Crump
John is a NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. He is the former CEO of Veritas Firearms, LLC and is the co-host of The Patriot News Podcast which can be found at www.blogtalkradio.com/patriotnews. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%’ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias. In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. John lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and sons and is currently working on a book on leftist deplatforming methods and can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on Facebook at realjohncrump, or at www.crumpy.com.
It isn’t just Twitter, etc. I was banned from Castboolits because I was determined by a moderator to be “too dangerous.” I was also banned from GlockTalk by Austin because I exposed him for the Social Justice Warrior that he is. Life’s too short to worry about what small minded people think about me.
I was suspended indefinitely from Twitter after I posted videos showing that were more than one shooter at the NZ Mosque; and that there were ‘crisis actor’ rehearsal previous to the shootings.
indeed….!
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I’m sorry, I didn’t know this was twitter! I thought this was Ammoland????
I honestly have great concerns for humans that indulge in “Socialists Media” of any kind. These sites are mere cesspools of data collected by their operators and trolled by their supporters/controllers, the CIA, NSA, FBI and numerous other democratically controlled government (?) agencies. AKA; DNC!. Anything the damnocrats don’t like or find offensive to their socialist/communist agenda is summarily blocked or deleted. Albeit: “The truth”.
“Geben Sie uns Ihre Waffen. Wir kümmern uns um Sie!”
“Sie sind nicht Demokrat. Sie keine Rechte haben.”
Twitter is definitely a totalitarian group. I read some tweets but mostly stay away from it because of their bad habits of regulating what a person can say. I use to read James Woods tweets and most of them were very good but with him being a conservative they banned him often. He has been off twitter for quite a while now so I read what GOA has to say but not much else. They are a pretty screwed up outfit with no idea how to keep people using them.
My account at Twitter was locked for a comment very similar to John Lott’s, on the same subject. After a over a month waiting for a response to my appeal, I deleted the tweet to get back in. I then DM’ed my followers about what had happened, informed them that I’d be following James Woods’ lead and not using Twitter again until the censorship was ended, and invited them to join MeWe, the other platform I use that respects free speech. A few of them followed me. My last act was to retweet, word for word, the tweet that got… Read more »
This is exactly why I don’t “TWIT”. Like fuckbook, they are nothing but marxist POGs! I will not give any credence to such skullduggery! Basically, fuck them!
When the powers that be are pushing a lie, it then becomes treason to tell the truth. This is the simple reason Twitter is doing what they are doing.
twitter banned me also for a comment about islam. they said I had to delete the posts or appeal which I did. I have not received a response to my appeal and more than 3 months later still cannot even log on or watch imbedded videos from others.