“It will be encouraging to the fascists,” said Gwen Snyder, a researcher and anti-fascist organizer in Philadelphia.
of Snyder Twitter account was suspended early Thursday after someone reported a 2019 post of hers that showed photos of a mayoral candidate attending a public rally alongside the extremist group Proud Boys. After The Washington Post asked about the suspension, Twitter spokesman Trenton Kennedy said the tweet was not objectionable and that “our teams took the enforcement action in error.”
On Tuesday, Twitter said it’s new “private information policy” would allow someone whose photo or video was posted on Twitter without their consent to ask the company to take it down.
I tweet said the rule would help “to curb the misuse of the media to harass, intimidate and reveal the identities of private individuals, which disproportionately affects women, activists, dissidents and members of minority communities”.
The rule, company officials said Tuesday, will not apply to photos that add “value to public discourse” or are of people involved in a large-scale protest, crisis situation or other “newsworthy” event because of the value of public interest”.
However, in the days since, white supremacists on channels such as the encrypted chat service Telegram have urged supporters to use the new policy against activists and journalists who have shared their information or identified them in photos of hate rallies or public events.
“Due to Twitter’s new privacy policy, things now suddenly work more in our favor as we can more easily take down Antifas pages… doxing,” one white nationalist wrote to his Telegram followers and Nazi sympathizer on Wednesday night, referring to the anti-fascist political movement whose members often clash with far-right protesters and the practice of publishing people’s personal information online.
It included a list of nearly 50 Twitter accounts and urged people to report them for suspension under the new rule. At least one of the accounts was suspended as of Thursday. Twitter did not respond to a question about why the account had been removed.
The Telegram post has been viewed more than 10,000 times. After it was shared on Twitter by counter-extremism researcher Christopher Goldsmith, the Telegram user wrote: “Yes and we’ll do it again.”
How Twitter will implement the new policy remains controversial. A Twitter spokesperson told The Post this week that the policy would help prevent the unauthorized distribution of photos of rape victims or women in authoritarian countries, who could face real-world punishment for going outside without a burka.
company said that each report will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis and that flagged accounts can appeal or delete offending posts to resolve their suspensions.
Snyder, the Philadelphia anti-fascist scholar, said she believed her reported tweet did not violate the rules, but deleted it anyway, worried that any appeal she made would take too long or ultimately fail. She suspects the rule could have a “catastrophic” chilling effect on other researchers working to expose extremists.
Since the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, anti-extremist activists have used Twitter to identify previously anonymous members of far-right militias, neo-Nazis and other hate groups by sharing photos, their names and other information.
In some cases, exposed individuals have lost their jobs, been reported to law enforcement, or faced repercussions from co-workers, friends or family. Activists and researchers who have shared their information have also faced death threats and online attacks.
Goldsmith, a researcher at the Innovation Lab at Human Rights First, which tracks the far right, said the rule could undermine Twitter’s primary role in disseminating critical information about hate campaigns online and in the real world.
Amateur investigators known as “riot hunters” openly used Twitter to identify rioters in the US Capitol on January 6. Other researchers did the same after Charlottesville, he said. A jury last week ruled that more than a dozen white supremacists and hate groups must pay more than $26 million in damages for acts of intimidation and violence during the rally that left one woman dead.
“Much of the evidence presented in these cases has come from what Twitter now says is protected or ‘private’ information,” Goldsmith said.
Anti-extremism researchers and photojournalists on Twitter have been doing the last few days posted reports showing suspension notices they had received under the new rule, even for months-old tweets from people in public places to whom the rule would not apply.
Far-right activists have also worked to exploit their newfound power. On Telegram, a far-right activist shared tips on how to find potentially reportable images, using Twitter search queries like “images exposed by fascists.”
On other sites, such as the fringe social network Gab, far-right activists said they were aggressively preparing reports in hopes of taking down anti-fascist Twitter accounts. One said he had filed more than 50 reports in one day, adding, “It’s time to stay on the offensive.”
Some have also tried to organize on Twitter, with one account saying they had filed dozens of reports under the rule against anti-fascist accounts, tweeting, “[Right-wing] Twitter, it’s time. I told you yesterday and you had reservations. No more excuses. We have work to do.” The account has since been suspended.
Goldsmith said he was concerned that Twitter moderators would not be prepared for a flood of reports from bad actors who might organize on other sites in hopes of blocking or hindering the researchers’ work.
“Twitter just doesn’t have the manpower to make these judgment calls,” he said.
Oren Segal, vice president of the Center on Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League, said Twitter needs to provide more clarity on how these rules will be enforced.
“If the purpose of the new rules is to help stop doxing and harassment, this is important. But exposing extremists is also important,” Segal said. “Responsibility is important. And sunlight can be the best disinfectant when done responsibly.”
