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.
“Your comment is awaiting moderation. This is a preview, your comment will be visible after it has been approved.”
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.”
Lol, your German is very accurate my friend. Exactly the way it is.
Demokraten Abschaum sind Schweinehunde. Keine Beleidigung von Hunden beabsichtigt
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.
The 1st Amendment doesn’t apply to social media and because of that neither does the 2nd Amendment. It’s time to
apply the laws of the land to uncensor these vipers who hide in the shadows but direct social agendas.
“Twitter claims that they do not use political affiliation when enforcing their rules”, Jack Dorsey and Twitter LIE. Twitter and the rest ban some extreme “hate” remarks, but their primary goal is to silence all dissenting thought. All thought that does not conform to their leftist progressive communistic agenda is therefore hate speech and subject to being banned. Or, as Mr. Orwell aptly put it, “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia (George Orwell)”. This sounds… Read more »
Careful what you type… Big Brother is watching…
That reminds me of the old children’s song: O be careful little eyes what you see For big brother is looking down filled with lies and hate O be careful little ears what you hear For big brother is looking down filled with lies and hate O be careful little tongue what you say For big brother is looking down filled with lies and hate O be careful little hands what you do For big brother is looking down filled with lies and hate O be careful little mind what you think For big brother is looking down filled with… Read more »
The only good thing I have seen from Twitter is Trumps ability to bypass MSM outlets and get some real news out. Other than that it has become a haven for angry upset individuals to rain down hate on any one or anything they are upset about.
I dont subscribe to Twitter or facebook or any other communist social media sites . Fuck them and thier anti American agendas . These people are a threat to freedom around the world and should be dumped by all feedom loving people . Americans should block and freeze Twitter out of existance .
Nor do I. Never had a need to use Twatter or Suckbook. I am not in the business of selling peoples data without giving them some of the billions in profits. Our forefathers would have strung them all up. Better things to do with my time. Reload, reload, reload and more reloading. But at times I do stop and examine the workings of different firearms trying to improve their functioning in the pursuit of perfection. P.S. How come no one has started a site like these but charge a $1 membership per year ( 2 billion people ) and have… Read more »
I took an image of the original tweet and posted that image in a tweet to keep the original thought up on twitter, I don’t see anything Twitter should have objected to being posted, I can only assume it didn’t agree with his point and therefor locked his account.
My Twitter account @WP has been suspended three times, the most recent was two weeks ago for seven days AFTER I deleted the so-called offending tweet. Each time you are suspended, you are shown the offending tweet, and the rules you supposedly broke. Every time, my tweets DID NOT violate their rules as stated, but just triggered some little pajama wearing social justice warrior using their computer from mom’s basement while enjoying a snack of Hot Pockets made by their mom. I stay tweeting on Twitter and broadcast via tweet each time I put a post on my blog “Thoughts… Read more »
Witold Pilecki said ” triggered some little pajama wearing social justice warrior using their computer from mom’s basement while enjoying a snack of Hot Pockets made by their mom. ” I have studied pathological Aspies on the internet for 14+ years and I wish to inform you that the cliche’ about them living in Mommy’s basement and yelling up DEMANDS that she make them more Hot Pockets is actually true more than not. Most of the larger mass school shootings even further back than Columbine, were perpetrated by people with Aspergers (High Functioning Autism). For most of the last decade… Read more »
Very informative…. Thank you. This info needs to be more available.
The answer will probably be, “Because shut up, reasons, and TRUMP! “
Everyone understands what Twitters agenda is. 😡 They’ve been riding that Unicorn and blowing rainbow bubbles since day one.
Lott Jr. told the truth and twitter doesn’t like it.
indeed….!
On behalf of all of us that have never used,and never will use twitter,i thank Twitter for validating that decision . Moreover I thank them for being so obtuse that they now routinely Strisand effect everything they try to suppress.
“Twitter says” blah, blah, blah.
If you ignore what “Twitter” says about itself and look at the actions it takes, they contradict each other. People need to dump Twitter and sign on to Gab some some other service that supports freedom of expression.
don’t support s**tter-twitter