Delta Air Lines
Photograph ©2020 by Brian Cohen.

What Did I Write That Required a Disclaimer on Twitter?!?

I wrote an article back on Thursday, January 14, 2021 with the title Unruly Passengers Face Up to $35,000 In Fines and 20 Years of Imprisonment: Federal Aviation Administration which quoted Steve Dickson — who is the current administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States — and also featured an official video of him…

What Did I Write That Required a Disclaimer on Twitter?!?

…but when I viewed this message on Twitter which contained a link to that article

https://twitter.com/Joan_1951/status/1349964971145195522

…I found a disclaimer which warned that “The following media includes potentially sensitive content. Change Settings”…

a screenshot of a social media post
Source: Twitter.

…and only when I clicked on the word View was I able to view the link to the article which I wrote.

a screenshot of a social media post
Source: Twitter.

I repeatedly read the article to find out what it contained which earned it that disclaimer. I was unsuccessful. Perhaps the nature of the content is so obvious that it is hiding in plain view from me?

Summary

According to Lexico — which is powered by Oxford — the definition of censorship is “The suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.

That disclaimer does not apply in this particularly specific situation, of course; but although social media in one way gives billions of people a chance to freely broadcast their voices to be heard by a potential audience worldwide — especially if their messages became “viral” — it also gives those who own or operate its various channels greater power to control what messages are permitted to be sent…

…and the possibility that errors can occur pertaining to the control or censorship of the veracity of the message — and that can be potentially dangerous with regard to freedom of speech.

To be clear, I am not declaring any affiliation, support, or opposition to the person who decided to “retweet” the link to my article, as that was her choice to do so.

I have never been a member of most social media outlets — such as Instagram, TikTok, or Snapchat — simply because I really had no reason to do so; and I reluctantly became a member of LinkedIn and Twitter but am not a prolific user of them…

…but I have to question in which direction social media is going — and if we as a society should be concerned about censorship and restrictions in the foreseeable future…

Photograph ©2020 by Brian Cohen.

  1. Your original post shows fine on Twitter to the rest of the world…
    …the retweet by this nitwit is what was locked – probably by one of her psycho followers who did not feel you were anti-American enough for their agenda. Block her and her retweet goes away.

    There is absolutely a ton of censorship in social media, no doubt. But this is just a case of some idiot choosing to retweet your post. Maybe change your settings so you do not inadvertently get caught up in someone else’s agenda?

  2. the other day jake tapper tweeted about a michigan coach being charged with several crimes against gymnasts.

    I replied to Tapper saying:”suicide today” as an update. The guy had shot himself.

    My twitter account was shut down for 12 hours for mentioning suicide,

  3. Oh, you need to be careful. I had my account suspended twice within a few weeks for very little reason. If you tweet something that is even sort of critical of any government actions. Say you are complaining about a new TSA or FAA rule, etc. you are at risk for either censorship, suspension, being banned, or at least having your post tagged with a “fact check” note or something like you just experienced. Twitter and Facebook have been really bad about this since about September. I recently shut down my Twitter account over this. I was an early adopter of Twitter and started on that platform in about 2006 or early 2007 so it’s disappointing to see them ruin it as they have. I have better things to do with my time.

    1. Agreed – it is so disturbing what is being done on social media these days. The freedom with which trolls have to report perfectly reasonable posts and cause account lockdowns is insane. Not surprising but upsetting nonetheless!

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