The Responsibility Of #Complicit Social Media

Latest projection protest involves the #complicit hashtag and Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey.

There has been a lot of talk in recent months about news outlets, social media responsibility, and online speech. “Fake news” is the insult du jour for any reports that go against one’s views, while cries of “freedom of speech” circulate whenever someone is technologically silenced (despite the fact that freedom of speech specifically applies to repercussions from the government due to your words, and not from friends, family members, employers, or privately-owned platforms).

Recently, “projection protests” have taken place in which a message, not always a polite or SFW one, are projected onto a property from a nearby location. Some choice example have been expletives projected onto Trump-owned properties in various cities, for example. These forms of protest are protected in that there is no law against reflecting a light source off a building or structure of these kinds.

Twitter CEO and co-founder

The latest projection protest involves the #complicit hashtag and Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey, who’s come under fire for quite some time for not taking action against certain high-profile figures and their Twitter accounts. Resistance SF, a San Francisco-based organization, has taken credit for projecting “@jack is #complicit” on the exterior of Twitter’s headquarters due to the lack of action taken against Donald Trump’s Twitter account.

Image courtesy of Resistance SF via Facebook

The account has been reported to Twitter countless times for illegal or inciting statements, but specifically, Resistance SF is taking a stand against Trump’s latest barrage of tweets at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The two are in a pissing contest of global proportions over who has the easiest access to the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, which prompted Trump to tweet,

“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”

Critics

A great number of critics and news sources alike have taken that tweet as a threat against the country, and are imploring Twitter to shut down the president’s personal account for the greater global good. However, Twitter has remained silent on any conversation surrounding the suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account, which has led the protest organization to cite that Twitter and its executives are contributing to the increased threat of nuclear war.

Simple choice?

For its part, Resistance SF has a simple solution: remove Trump’s account or remove Jack Dorsey. According to a statement on their post featuring the projection, “Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, has enabled @realDonaldTrump from his first dog whistles in the birther movement to his latest nuclear pissing contest. @Jack is #complicit. He endangers the world and allows Trump to break his company’s own terms of service to do it. As long as he is CEO of Twitter and Square, they cannot be considered moral tech companies, and the board of directors of both should do the right thing and insist that either Trump or Jack must go.”