Did Twitter Suspend a Jewish Activist for Complaining About Anti-Semitism?

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By Lilly Maier January 9, 2017

Imagine getting a tweet with your face on a lampshade. You report the picture to Twitter as anti-Semitic harassment — and Twitter responds by suspending your account, not those of your trolls.

That’s what activist Alexandra Brodsky says happened to her. The fellow at the National Women’s Law Center, an advocacy group for women, tweeted out screenshots of hateful tweets she received over the weekend.

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“So let’s get this straight: Twitter still hasn’t suspended all the bigots I reported, but they have suspended me for calling out bigotry,” Brodsky wrote in a public Facebook post. “I call bullshit.”

Brodsky has been an outspoken advocate on behalf of rape victims. She was named one of 2016’s Forward 50.

Since then, Twitter re-activated Brodsky’s account and suspended the anti-Semitic user who originally attacked Brodsky.

Brodsky writes, “Even if they’ve cleaned up this mess, Twitter’s anti-harassment enforcement is still unacceptable. Public criticism … shouldn’t be necessary for the company to do the right thing.”

Twitter didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Lilly Maier is a news intern at the Forward. Reach her at maier@forward.com or on Twitter at @lillymmaier

Lilly Maier is a news intern at the Forward. She is a graduate journalism student at New York University, where she studies as a Fulbright scholar. She also holds a B.A. in Jewish history from the University of Munich. Contact Lilly at maier@forward.com, read her portfolio, or follow her on Twitter.

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