NRA Explore by Frank Miniter July 12, 2019
Before touching on a topic this, well, touchy, it is worth repeating that Twitter is a private company. It is not a government entity. Your First Amendment right to free speech does not restrict Twitter from taking down a post or blocking someone from using its platform. The First Amendment right to free speech, like most of our civil rights, is a restriction on government, not on private companies.
That said, it is also important for us to use our First Amendment-protected right to speak to defend our Second Amendment right to bear arms. If Twitter is playing politics by blocking some voices for political reasons while promoting others—as many conservatives are accusing them of this—then it is fair and even important for us to journalistically call them out if we have specific examples.
In this case John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of More Guns, Less Crime, among other books, just had his account blocked by Twitter for sending the tweet: “New Zealand’s killer’s manifesto says that he did attack to get more gun control/gun bans in New Zealand and the US, Killer was a socialist, environmentalist who hated capitalists and trade.†Lott then put a link in to send people to a story on his website that explained, with more links, that his tweet is accurate.
More:
https://www.americas1stfreedom.org/articles/2019/7/12/twitter-banned-john-lott-for-what/
