While the term “illegal alien” is enshrined in federal law and U.S. Supreme Court opinions, it’s apparently deemed “hate speech” by social-media giant Twitter.
The Center for Immigration Studies said Twitter rejected four tweets for use in the organization’s Twitter Ads campaign, alleging hateful content.
Several other tweets were approved for the CIS campaign. The four rejected tweets used the statutory phrases “illegal alien” or “criminal alien”
All of the tweets referenced law enforcement, either at the border or in the interior.
In federal law, 8 U.S. Code § 1252c for example, is titled “Authorizing State and local law enforcement officials to arrest and detain certain illegal aliens.”
CIS said Twitter’s only response to an inquiry about why promotion of the tweets was rejected was: “We’ve reviewed your tweets and confirmed that it is ineligible to participate in the Twitter Ads program at this time based on our Hateful Content policy. Violating content includes, but is not limited to, that which is hate speech or advocacy against a protected group.”
CIS explained that organizations of all kinds pay Twitter to promote specific tweets to drive traffic to an organization’s website.
Twitter advertises that the ads “can get you more likes, amplify your message, and get more people talking about the things that matter to you most – your cause, project, business, or brand.”
CIS noted that at a July congressional hearing on social media filtering practices, House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said that social media platforms need to “do a better job explaining how they make decisions to filter content and the rationale for why they do so.”
One of the banned tweets:
ICE recently completed a massive multi-state enforcement operation targeting criminal aliens that resulted in the arrests of 364 individuals. Of those, 187 (51%) had prior criminal convictions and 97 had been previously removed from the United States.https://t.co/PSWsBNlmCU
— Center for Immigration Studies (@CIS_org) September 6, 2018
