UPDATED: The Twitter account of Julian Assange’s mother was restored on Wednesday night after her supporters sent a flood of messages to Twitter.
Telesur English Hit By Same Restrictions
Christine Assange, the mother of WikiLeaks founder and publisher Julian Assange, had her Twitter account restored more than 24 hours after it was abruptly restricted by the social media company.
Hundreds of tweets were sent to the San Francisco-based company by supporters demanding that she regain access to her account.
Ms. Assange tweeted at 10:33 p.m. U.S. Eastern time on Wednesday: “Back on deck! Many thanks to everyone contacting @Twitter on my behalf. Thanks to @Twitter for responding with a reconnect.”
Ms. Assange told Consortium News by phone that she has had no contact with Twitter and still does not know why her account was restricted and precisely why it was restored. She was unable to post new Tweets or read anyone else’s while the restriction was in place.
Outrage at the restriction was expressed by many Assange supporters in tweets to Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey.
Another supporter wrote: “The only unusual activity is not seeing a mother fight for her child. It’s unnatural and cowardly to think that her tweets are unusual.”
On Thursday, @TelesurEnglish, the Venezuelan state broadcaster’s English service, was hit with the same restrictions by Twitter as had Ms. Assange, who tweeted a complaint about it:
I would like to say “F***k Twitter. I have always avoided all social media including Twitter, because it is too intrusive.
It appears that the American public is just as uninformed as the people of the Soviet Union during the good old “Pravda” days.
All empires have eventually fallen, and it seems that our own Humpty Dumpty is doing everything that his grossly limited intelligence
and knowledge allows him to.
People need to start cancelling their FB, twitter and youtube accounts and move on from their 1984 tactics to censor communication
Is Telesur really a Venzuelan state broadcasting service? Other countries support it too, and I don’t think it’s a government entity.
I don’t think it is either.
I watched some of the early Telesur documentaries on youtube. When they interviewed the anti-maduro rioters, the rioters had never heard of Telesur. Instead they thought Telesur were western media that would give them favourable coverage, foolishly allowing the cameras to film them making Molotov cocktails and planning to see how much damage they cause before the police showed up.
That was how I initially realised the msm coverage of the “peaceful” protesters in Venezuela was nothing but a farce.
The battle against independent media is obviously getting more intense. I recently found this very helpful overview of the US/UK media landscape:
https://swprs.org/media-navigator/
Choose your sources wisely!
I was so happy to see her account back on twitter. The really outrageous aspect of restricting her account, is she is truly a role model for responsible dissent. She researches before she comments. She encourages her supporters to use facts, not insults, when answering those with another point of view. She strides for the big picture and does not propagandize. Twitter could learn from her!
I recently heard the Joe Rogan podcast featuring Twitter’s Jack Dorsey the CEO, Vijaya Gadde who is their legal policy lead joined by Tim Pool a journalist who has been very critical of Twitter’s policy and rules in banning people from Twitter. It was a long but good discussion. My takeaway was that Twitter’s head honcho(s) are not hasty in banning ANYONE from Twitter. Albeit they do have a left leaning bias but they at least from what I heard, have tried to be impartial in their treatment of all Twitter users. I have also heard Alex Jones when he was a guest on the Joe Rogan show and have to say that despite being a blowhard in many ways, demented almost, he does have an opinion which should not be snuffed out, that is wrong and equally egregious as banning the Assanges.
I wonder if people Commenting here know that Alex Jones/Infowars was a huge supporter of Julian Assange. In fact the DAY AFTER his White House petition to free Julian Assange reached 10,000 signatures, his Infowars YouTube account was suspended. Coincidence? https://www.infowars.com/petition/
It would be a perfect expression of the ethical core of Twitter if the only thing Alex Jones has done that reflects he has a shred of decency caused a problem for him. However, he probably supported Assange (if he did-I am assuming you are correct) for reasons that are insane, and that, given the dingbat incompetence that permeates everything in social media, that it was, in fact, a coincidence.
I would bet that the tweet about breaking up Twitter is the one that got Dorsey’s attention.
#FreeAssange #FreeJulianAssange … before it’s too late
Jeffrey Epstein, for example!
Same strategy as potus – now it’s better understood potus’ reason for its use.
The question becomes, ¿Why don’t they shut out potus’ racist and threatening remarks also?
An abject lesson in oligarchy and authoritarianism.
Your “friendly” Government is your worst enemy. What you have trusted in is a lie. You are dreaming your way into Armageddon. Please wake up to reality – for the sake of all of us. (message to whom it my concern)
Fighting back against censorship has results. Bravo to those who spoke up for free speech!
The question that needs to be answered (truthfully) “is why was this account shut down in the first place”)? I haven’t ever seen anything by Assange’s mother as I am not on Twitter or Facebook, but I can’t imagine she would say anything that would outrage public decency.
Excellent series on Assange by Lissa Johnson featuring our own Joe Lauria and John Pilger:
http://opensociet.org/2019/03/21/the-psychology-of-getting-julian-assange-part-3-wikileaks-and-russiagate-trust-us-were-the-cia/