Twitter’s Latvian-speaking censors shield abusive right-wing trolls
I have been “permanently” banned from Twitter for one reason: those on the social media platform who oversee and censor tweets in the Latvian language are deliberately shielding racist, xenophobic and right-wing trolls.
Yes, I have used harsh language against my opponents, some of whom call black people “monkeys”, who compare immigrants to animals and who presume that all Muslims are murderous jihadists and should be deported to the last person from Europe. Add to that rabid haters of LGBT people. All of that has been fine with Twitter so far.
What triggered them was a tweet in response to a pseudonymous identity called @Eriks_the_Great who dredged up a “prophecy” by Eižens Finks, a Latvian in the 1930s seen as a psychic, who said that strangers and those who have harmed Latvia (or something along those lines) would have to leave the country in the future.
@Eriks_the_Great repeatedly tweeted that I and several other people, including my fellow journalist Inga Spriņge of Re:Baltica (who actually lives mostly in Estonia) would have to leave. Since I have no special reason to leave Latvia voluntarily, I interpreted the repetition of this phrase — you have to leave — as implying that I should be forcibly deported. To which I replied in a tweet, that if I were forced to leave, I would…
