Twitter Suspended The Babylon Bee but Allows Nazis on Their Platform
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said he had no intentions of banning Nazis on his platform. Why, then, is he banning satirical news sites? | Source: REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis
- Twitter temporarily suspended The Babylon Bee’s account.
- It was restored an hour later.
- Even though Twitter blamed algorithms that “accidentally” marked the account as a “bot” account, one has to wonder how, exactly, this “algorithm” works when actual Nazis remain on the social media platform.
The Babylon Bee was temporarily banned.
In a stunning move, Twitter suspended the satirical news outlet, claiming that it had gotten swept up in a “bot account” clean-up.
And while the outlet’s account was restored about an hour later, one has to wonder what, exactly, is going on in Twitter’s main offices when they suspend satirical news accounts but keep actual Nazis on the platform.
What’d The Babylon Bee Do Wrong?
Kyle Mann, editor-in-chief of The Babylon Bee, posted an email from Twitter explaining why the social media giant had decided to suspend them.
One hour later, the account was restored, and Twitter apologized. In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson said that the company was “accidentally caught in a spam filter .”
But the question of why Twitter allows other awful sites to go unchecked while catching a rather funny and satirical news site to get suspended remains to be addressed.
Jack Dorsey Allows Literal Nazis
Back in 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey made clear that his company had no plans to deal with Nazis on the platform. He also made clear that even though Donald Trump has brought the world to the brink of war using his Twitter account, he had no plans to suspend or otherwise limit his account because he was a “global leader.”
That’s changed now, of course — sometimes to good effect, other times to not-so-good effect.
Video: The Babylon Bee Is A Satire Site — Don’t Take it Seriously
And the Babylon Bee’s temporary suspension falls into the latter category. Sure, it lampoons “the left” as opposed to The Onion’s lampooning of “the right,” but satire and parody have been part of the foundation of human society since time immemorial.
Sadly, Twitter does more to combat satire than they do to combat actual Nazis, but here we are.
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