The protests began the previous night following the fatal shooting of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott by a police officer at an apartment complex near UNC Charlotte. Perhaps it penalized @Instapundit under this provision: “Violent threats (direct or indirect): You may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism”. “It was brief, since it was Twitter, but blocking highways is unsafe and I don’t think people should stop for a mob, especially when it’s been violent”.
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As protests in Charlotte descended into chaos and violent outbreaks on Wednesday night, a conservative columnist for USA Today put out a provocative tweet that seems to have led to his suspension on social media. “I wouldn’t actually aim for people blocking the road, but I wouldn’t stop because I’d fear for my safety, as I think any reasonable person would”.
Social media response was quick and much of it justly appalled, with multiple people asking on Twitter for a response from University of Tennessee Law and USA Today.
According to Reynolds, Twitter unsuspended his account on the condition that he delete the “run them down” tweet.
And locking interstates and trapping people in their cars is not peaceful protest – it’s threatening and unsafe, especially against the background of people rioting, cops being injured, civilian-on-civilian shootings, and so on. Might you have said something along the lines of if threatened, you can run them down? His Twitter supporters had already been hard at work hand wringing over the “whoohoo censorship!” of the “free-speech advocate and well-known Conservative”.
REYNOLDS: I mean, I guess, although I, you know, it’s Twitter.
Twitter suspended the Instapundit account after Reynolds posted the tweet. It is threatening. It is not peaceful protest, and it should not be permitted. I think I know what you meant. But in case you’re wondering if this is just a misunderstanding – something said a bit too “pithily” as it were, here’s what Reynolds told radio talker Hugh Hewitt. “I’ve done so, but it’s here”, he tweeted, linking to a copy of his original tweet on a website. Saying “Run them down” is not an opinion.
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I don’t know why at this point anything is shocking any more, but behold the white dudes who insist that you can use your platform with 65,000 followers to demand that protestors be run down and hey, man, that’s free speech.
