Twitter can’t bring itself to ban those calling for Israel’s genocide on platform

“That answer happens to be unsatisfactory as a Jew whose genocide is being called for,” said MK Cotler-Wunsh.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Twitter “cannot predict” what, if any, action will be taken against world leaders who call for the genocide of the Jewish people on its platform, a Twitter representative told a special Knesset committee hearing Wednesday.

“Let me ask you, please, squarely: Is and are calls for the genocide of Israel in the public interest as a statement of foreign policy?” asked Arsen Ostrovsky, an international human rights lawyer.

In response, Twitter’s public policy representative Ronan Costello said that the area was “developing.”

“I think that one thing that we can take from the developments of the last few months – and I hope you’ll appreciate this – is that no world leaders are exempt from our policies and that we will enforce our policies where we feel there have been violations of them,” said Costello in an apparent reference to the platform’s banning of President Donald Trump last month.

Costello said Twitter’s developing policies are applicable to world leaders, “regardless of who they are or who they represent.”

“There is no exception as to whom they are applicable to,” he said, adding, “I cannot predict what enforcement action will be taken in the future based on policy development being applied in the moment or perhaps even retrospectively.”

Member of Knesset Michal Cotler-Wunsh said, “That answer happens to be unsatisfactory as a Jew whose genocide is being called for.”

At a Knesset hearing in July 2020, Ostrovsky noted that Twitter had started flagging Trump’s tweets and asked, “Why have you not flagged the tweets of Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, who has literally called for the genocide of Israel and the Jewish people?”

Twitter representative Ylwa Pettersson responded that “foreign policy saber-rattling” is “generally not in violation of our Twitter rules.”

Cotler-Wunsh said, “So calling for genocide is okay, but commenting on politics is not?”

“I think what’s come up again and again through different examples is a sense of double standards, and I would implore Twitter and other online platforms to ensure – and I think that’s your responsibility and you need to be held to account for that – that there is no double standard,” she said.