DNA Edit: Targeting a minority – Twitter should delete the tweet

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s “Smash Brahmanical Patriarchy” placard had understandably riled up Indians. Dorsey, like the many users of the social platform he heads, has indulged in a hit-and-run behaviour, accepting no responsibility for his actions. It didn’t occur to him even once that his action can trigger consequences and polarise the Indian society on caste lines — an extremely sensitive issue. Dorsey has unleashed a hate campaign against Brahmins, a critical minority in the country constituting less than five per cent of the population. Twitter’s miserable defence that “It is not a statement from Twitter or our CEO, but a tangible reflection of our company’s efforts to see, hear, and understand all sides of important public conversations” triggered even more outrage. 

Twitter, whose monthly active users globally averaged 326 million in the July-September quarter, has a substantial number of Indian users. Yet it has allowed hate campaigns to proliferate without taking any concrete measure. Back in 2016, the European Commission had agreed with Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube on a “Code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online”. The four platforms agreed to assess the majority of users’ notifications in 24 hours while respecting EU and national legislations on hate speech. It committed to remove, if necessary, those messages assessed illegal. In the course of 2018, Instagram, Google+, Snapchat and Dailymotion announced the intention to join the Code of conduct. 

One of the clauses in the Code asked the IT Companies (Twitter, FB) to intensify their work with civil society organisations (CSO) to deliver best practice training on countering hateful rhetoric and prejudice and increase the scale of their proactive outreach to CSOs to help them deliver effective counter speech campaigns. Twitter should delete the offending tweet and apologise for its CEO’s action.