First YouTube and now Twitter is freezing mainstream conservative commentators. Kazuya’s bogus YouTube purge for ‘spam’ a few days ago, now reinstated after a overwhelming response from online Japanese across the political spectrum, has been followed by Twitter freezing his account. Two attacks this close together is not coincidence. I smell a rat.
The Twitter takedown is particularly bogus: a ‘well known’ lawyer lodged 4 copyright complaints on a Kazuya tweet that URL links to Kazuya’s own YouTube Channel video. In short somebody claimed copyright on content they don’t own. Twitter froze Kazuya’s account anyway. This is somebody hijacking DMCA rules to take down somebody else they don’t want on Twitter. Maybe Twitter wants it that way.
The YouTube purge has already damaged YouTube’s credibility in Japan because they don’t offer real reasons for banning or reinstating Kazuya’s account or other similar conservative commentator YouTuber accounts that are still frozen. YouTube comes across as being completely arbitrary or worse, politically motivated, a huge turn off for many Japanese.
If Twitter doesn’t do a better job of filtering bogus copyright claims and falls into the trap of becoming somebody else’s tool, Twitter credibility in Japan will be destroyed too.
Your choice Twitter.
UPDATE
Now Twitter has been caught engaging in Shadow Banning of conservative Twitter users but changed it overnight when caught by Vice. Meanwhile Kazuya’s Twitter account still remains frozen for unexplained reasons.