Twitter’s Great Firewall of Censorship

I’m angrier than a teenage Uyghur sent to a ‘summer fun ‘re-education camp’ in Shanghai over the way Twitter is “clamping” down on free speech.

Why just the other day, I was sitting with my eldest son Gus chatting about how Dictator Trudeau wants to ban handguns. My son showed me a meme that demonstrated how after China removed handguns in 1935 more than 20 million innocent civilians were killed by their oppressive government.

Now, don’t go all: “Toby’s a racist and hates the Chinese” because I’m not and I don’t. In fact, my neighbour Mr. Wonton from Wuhan is one of my closest pals. Why, I even take my wife Greta for dim sum at least once a month. But if there’s one man in China I can’t stand, it’s lockdown happy, social credit score oppressor President Xi Jinping.

I posted Gus’s meme to my Twitter page @GelmanProducer. Now, I’m not a gun-swinging redneck, despite popular belief, but there’s no way in hell that I’m going to let Dictator Trudeau paint the beautiful Great White North into an ugly red scare.

A WONG, WONG TIME AGO…

After about ten minutes, while I waited for my freedom-minded followers to ‘like’ my meme, I received an email from a Twitter Bot informing me that my tweet about the Chinese, particularly Winnie the Poo himself, President Xi Jinping, violated Twitter’s terms of service and my account would be suspended.

Well, I slammed my Lenovo Thinkpad shut and screamed. Gus thought I’d seen a mouse! I explained to him what the Twitter Bot had done and he said, “Come on, Pop, you can’t throw shade at the Chinese on social media.”

I wrote a stern message to the Twitter Bot, but only received a reply telling me to check my account in a week. I didn’t know what to do. I’d been addicted to Twitter for at least eight months, checking it every five minutes. Even in bed, I’d roll over in the middle of the night to see what was trending.

ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME, TOBY

After a day without social media, I started to feel dizzy, confused, and exhausted. I thought I had long-COVID! If somebody at the dinner table had an opinion about something, I didn’t know how to answer. Then about two days into my suspension, Greta brought home a well-known state-funded newspaper (It was free, apparently the Canadian Government pays for them all now). I hadn’t read a newspaper in years. Yes, they actually still print them! On paper! 

I began learning that vaccines were good, President Putin was bad, President Jinping was innovative, and gropie blackface Trudeau wasn’t a dictator but just an enlightened former drama teacher who spoke moistly. At dinner, wearing my newly purchased KN95 mask (Gus calls it a muzzle), I’d recite some of the propaganda I’d read that day to the absolute horror of my son. At one point, I told him how Trump’s $7 a gallon gas prediction was a fluke, and Joe Biden didn’t steal the 2020 election. I even suggested that my family get a fourth dose of the Pfizer vaccine and also one for Monkeypox, because you can never be too careful. Then, despite Gus’s protest, I wrote a full confession email to the Twitter Bot and thanked President Jinping for my correct new way of thinking. And in the glorious name of obedience and collectivism, my account was restored. And all I had to do was control my soul’s desire for freedom.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE, TWITTER

The first thing I did when I logged in was change my profile image to a LGBTQ2S+ approved Pride Flag and then added a link to a page for BLM resources. Then I retweeted a story about Volodymyr Zelensky being a great asset for NATO. He’s a modern day Winston Churchill, you know. 

I ended up losing all my followers. All except for a Woke nurse with a moustache in Pyongyang, formerly known as Ottawa, who went by the pronouns WE/WERE. A few days later, after reciting WE’s tweets about COVID-19, masks, vaccines and banning handguns to my family, Gus did me a favour by deleting my account while I was out at a drag queen information session/children’s dance class.

You see, folks, I used to believe the key to change was open dialogue and holding the government accountable for their actions, but after my Twitter lobotomy, aka suspension, I’ve learned that there’s only two ways to think these days—a right way and a wong way. 

Thanks for removing half my brain, Twitter Bot.