Thread by @VABVOX

Saturday my account was locked by Twitter for only the 2nd time in my nearly 10yrs on here. I was locked for a tweet to Marco Rubio responding to his attack on Ilhan Omar. In my tweet I posted an article on domestic terrorism bolstering her claims about white male perpetrators.

My tweet, posted on July 25, had gone viral, with several thousand likes and RTs. Why was I locked for this tweet more than a week later?
Because it was mass reported by anti-Omar, pro-nationalist accounts. Twitter deemed my tweet "hateful conduct." But it was an MSM news story.

I took a screenshot of the report to me, but I fear putting it up because it might trigger another lock. But the term I used --the one deemed "hateful conduct"-- is trending today: #WhiteSupremacistTerrorism. So is #WhiteNationalistTerrorism.

I wanted to appeal the decision, because I knew it was wrong, but I have heard appeals can take weeks and this is my professional account. I use it for breaking news as well as for my own activism. So I deleted the tweet and then waited out the day of lockout.

But I am frustrated & angry over this unfair targeting. I am an award-winning journalist & author, I never curse on here, never use inappropriate language. So to have my account locked & be threatened with suspension was shocking when Twitter verifies #WhiteNationalist accounts.

I get literal death threats on here and have been attacked for my gender, sexual orientation, disability and cancer. Over nearly a decade, at most maybe a dozen of literally hundreds of vile and/or violent tweets to me that I have reported have been removed by Twitter.

Before the 2016 election, I was targeted as a Jew, with dozens of anti-Semitic threats. Twitter did not suspend a single account. So I wrote an article about it, with some of the tweets--like the one telling me to get in the cattle car--embedded.
curvemag.com/News/The-Night…

Ironically, while half my family is Jewish, the other half is Catholic. I am a Catholic. But the incident was a chilling reminder that we are whatever these nationalist folks say we are. And that is how nationalism works.

And that is how I got targeted again as an outspoken anti-nationalist. The fact is, for Twitter to justify locking my account for what I wrote in response to Rubio's and Omar's tweets, they would have to do the same to them, which they did not do.

The chilling effect on one outspoken left, anti-racist, anti-nationalist journalist like me may not matter to many, but when we suppress and/or silence those of us who speak truth to power as I was doing in the most benign way,referencing an MSM article, it is bad for everyone.