Empower Texans Silenced On Twitter

Empower Texans, a conservative political group here in Texas has been silenced on Twitter. Twitter made the move on Monday and hasn't given a reason why. On the Empower Texans blog they wrote yesterday:

While the Empower Texans team members engage in political conversations and advocacy using the Twitter medium, they certainly do not use the medium to sell particular products or to generate spam. Empower Texans uses the Twitter medium in good faith to engage and actively contribute to the social media/networking experience. We talk about political ideas, Texas issues, as well as topics of personal interests from Aggie football to UT baseball, families and vacations to history and pop-culture.

Individual Twitter accounts are suspended everyday for a litany of reasons only to be reinstated after a quick review. The fact that an organizational feed, along with the personal accounts of all those associated with the organization, were suspended at the same time is odd and raises concern. Even more so that they were suspended with no notice or warning.

This morning on his Google+ page Michael Quinn Sullivan, President of Empower Texans, posted that he has yet to hear from Twitter still.

So, is Twitter trying to silence the organization? Doubtful. Twitter isn't the type of organization that would go out and censor political views. What probably happened is that a rival political organization labeled Empower Texans a spam account and Twitter took action. How many people complained? You'd have to think the number would have to be high in order for Twitter to act like they did.

The fact that Twitter hasn't responded to Empower Texans is odd and not a good sign for a company that builds themselves on instant feedback. With social media and politics coming together now, Twitter and other forms of social media must have safe guards in place in order to prevent "attacks" on rival political groups.

Chad Hasty is the host of Lubbock's First News, on News/Talk 790 KFYO. You can hear Chad weekday mornings 6-9am in Lubbock on News/Talk 790 KFYO, Online at kfyo.com, and streaming on the radioPup app.