Zachary Kamel's Twitter account censored
On November 20, freelance journalist Zachary Kamel’s Twitter account, @ZacharyKamel, was locked for a post they made back in June. The post thread identified a handful of anonymous accounts, which had been harassing journalists and activists, as being run by Michael Ber. Kamel posted images of Ber, sourced from Ber’s own Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Months later, Twitter locked Kamel’s account, citing Canadian privacy laws about publishing media of an individual. This is not only a misinterpretation of those laws, but also has a chilling effect on journalists who report on the far-right. Kamel has waited over a month for Twitter to review their appeal and the account is still suspended.
During this time, the @IWWFJU tweeted support of Kamel and brought awareness to the ongoing issue of Twitter’s imbalanced application of its Terms of Service — leaving many users vulnerable to online hate speech and threats, while punishing those who attempt to speak out against harassment. In its tweet, the FJU linked to an archive that showed the original Twitter post that @ZacharyKamel had their account locked over.
Though the archive was hosted off Twitter, Twitter suspended the @IWWFJU account, citing the same Canadian privacy laws, and required deletion of the post before reinstatement. As previously happened in Elizabeth King’s account ban ruling, Twitter is using its prior rulings to railroad certain judgements, despite new circumstances and a lack of finality on the appeals of those rulings. This is lazy enforcement and allows bad rulings to compound on an issue without any additional effort by Twitter.
We encourage supporters to share – .@Twitter and @TwitterSupport shouldn’t prevent journalists from reporting on the far right. Reinstate @ZacharyKamel! See freelancejournalistsunion.org/statements/2019/12/17/kamel to learn more. via: @IWWFJU