On my phone Twitter is the most used app for finding news. It’s the easiest way to skim through news and entertainment, without having to read long and in-depth articles. Recently, my home page has been full of Tweets on the Turkish incursion into the north-eastern region of Kurdistan (Northern Syria). Unfortunately I have encountered plenty of graphic content depicting the plight of the Kurds. For me, it is disheartening to see so much suffering which I can’t do anything about; even worse when I can’t stop the spread of material which is nothing short of gratuitous.
The most disturbing and gruesome footage is readily accessible. In one example an IS fighter is seen cutting off a Kurdish civilian’s head with a knife. Why does Twitter allow such content to be shared? In addition, I’ve seen many racist comments against the Kurds. I feel very strongly that this grossly offensive material should not be allowed to circulate.
Twitter has rules and regulations which seem to have been ignored. According to Twitter’s sensitive media policy, people must not include violent, hateful, or adult content in areas with unrestricted access. If you share this content within Tweets, you need to mark your account as sensitive. Doing this places images and videos behind an interstitial or warning message, which has to be acknowledged before your media can be viewed.
I’m not surprised that these rules have proved ineffective; I am only amazed that anyone would think they could work. I’m also angry at the way different standards appear to have been applied to different folks. On Twitter it seems OK to share content about Kurds which would be considered unacceptable if other people were the target of it.
