Video game and nerd-culture website The Gaming Ground was temporarily suspended for seven days for saying Swedish politician Annie Lööf smiles like a “retard”. On October 28th, 2018 The Gaming Ground made a tweet criticizing the member of the Riksdag in Sweden, and was promptly hit with a seven day suspension from Twitter.
The Gaming Ground shared the image of Twitter’s suspension notice, which cited that saying Lööf “smiles like a retard” was “hateful conduct”.
This originated from a discussion that began back on October 27th, 2018 on Twitter, where The Gaming Ground was talking with others about a panel that featured Annie Lööf and Jordan Peterson, which was shared by user Micke K.
Jordan Peterson kör över Annie Lööf med kunskap och fakta
Sevärt! Dela, RT!#svpol #fempol #skavlan pic.twitter.com/IxIdBZZAIp
— Micke K (@MickeK69) October 27, 2018
Eventually, as the discussion continued on about Lööf’s policies, The Gaming Ground criticized Lööf, mentioning that she’s always “smiling like a retard”, which was promptly met with a temporary ban from Twitter.
Even after deleting the tweet, the account was still banned for seven days, leading Robin Ek, the owner of The Gaming Ground, to e-mail Twitter to inform them about the suspension.
Robin wrote…
“I (Robin Ek, the owner and founder of The Gaming Ground) just found out that we’ve been suspended on Twitter for seven days (@TheGamingGround). Well, I have attached a picture of the said Tweet, and I don’t see where we broke your policy rules? (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules …) Because I didn’t call anyone anything, send any threats or whatever. Furthermore, I removed the said tweet (as seen in the picture) as well. So I don’t get why we should be suspended for seven days? (I also thought that I just answered a question from a person that had zero to nothing to do with the person he or she asked me about).”
Twitter responded with a blanket message that stated…
“We received your appeal regarding your account. We will review the information you provided and respond as soon as possible.”
Robin mentioned that it’s also very difficult to get in touch with Twitter regarding suspensions, and he was given the runaround when attempting to direct message them about the suspension.
Twitter has been cracking down a lot on political speech, especially with the mid-term season in full-swing. Twitter also suspended the Benghazi survivor, Kris Paronto, for also using the word “retard” in a tweet criticizing the Left back in early September, 2018, as reported by Red State.
A lot of other users have also been temporarily suspended for using “retard” in ways that Twitter dislikes, but mostly for those who lean Right on the political spectrum. Twitter also has repeatedly censored, banned, or stifled the presence of Conservative users, as reported by The Hill. This has led a lot of people to point out that Twitter’s political bias is a one-way street and it’s directed Left.
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