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‘Rats’ and Viruses’: Twitter Finally Defends Religious People After Flood of Dehumanizing Posts

Photo by Bethany Clarke/Getty Images
Photo by Bethany Clarke/Getty Images
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By Will Maule
Author

July 9, 2019

Social media giant Twitter has been forced to take action after a series of posts were made with the intention of dehumanizing religious groups.

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The company has announced that it will be updating hate-speech rules to ban posts that liken religious groups to rats, viruses or maggots, in a decision that has been taken after “months in conversations,”
according to the BBC.

“Our primary focus is on addressing the risks of offline harm – and research shows that dehumanising language increases that risk,” the company said in a blog post.

The new rules may deter hateful individuals such as Louis Farrakhan from posting anti-semitic comments on the platform. Indeed, he has already been ordered to delete a video in which he referred to Jewish people as “termites.”

Twitter says @LouisFarrakhan's 2018 tweet comparing Jewish people to termites violates its new rules against the dehumanization of religious groups and must be deleted. His account will be locked until the tweet is removed. My story here: https://t.co/XQIZobf6Ev

— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) July 9, 2019

Shockingly, the video was allowed to remain on Twitter for months after it had been originally posted — something that was picked up on by CNN’s Jake Tapper.

So odd to see various accounts suspended for relatively minor offenses when anti-Semitic bilge like this continues to exist on this website. https://t.co/TF6IXeyD1p

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 7, 2019

Mr. Tapper: Your hatred for The Honorable Minister @LouisFarrakhan has reached the point of insanity.

It has already been documented by @Twitter @TwitterSafety that this tweet does not violate their terms of service. https://t.co/eX0nR9uzqg

— Team Farrakhan (@TeamFarrakhan) July 7, 2019

In another post, Farrakhan claimed to be “unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan” and made several offensive remarks about the Jewish people.

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Twitter hopes that its new policy will root out some of this ghastly language and reduce the anti-religious sentiment seen posted to the platform on a daily basis.

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