No longer the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.
Sinead McSweeney, Twitter’s vice president of public policy and communications for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, has said it is “no longer possible to stand up for all speech.”
McSweeney appeared before politicians on Tuesday as part of a wider inquiry into hate speech online.
Twitter once described itself as the “free-speech wing of the free-speech party” — but McSweeney’s remarks show how the firm has had to change to tackle abuse and extremism on its platform.
Twitter began throwing extremist accounts off its platform on Monday after a policy change around hateful conduct.
Twitter’s first executive in the UK, Tony Wang, described the company in 2012 as “the free-speech wing of the free-speech party.”
Now Sinead McSweeney, Twitter’s vice president for public policy and communications in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, has said it’s “no longer possible to stand up for all speech.
Tech: Twitter was once a bastion of free speech but now says it’s ‘no longer possible to stand up for all speech’ (TWTR)
