Considered Harassing Media And Journalists Twitter Block Journalist Accounts Posting They L's

Twitter was forced to block the popular "Journalist Posting They L's" account, because it was considered harassment. (photo: VOI)

JAKARTA - Twitter has blacklisted the popular "Journalist Posting They L's" account. This is because the account mocks the media by reposting material that has been posted or published by journalists. The account had more than 163,000 followers on Twitter before it was banned from appearing on the microblogging platform.

In internet slang, to "post an L" is a way of intentionally or unintentionally expressing a failure in public.

While the purpose of these accounts is to ridicule journalists, be careful not to tag them or do anything that could be construed as a violation of Twitter's policy against targeted harassment.

rip pic.twitter.com/2hHLDx9CB1

— I,Hypocrite (@lporiginalg) June 30, 2021

Most of the posts from these accounts are just screenshots of tweets made by journalists. But without marking it into the journalist's account and without any additional comments from that account.

The last tweet the account made before it was blocked, as it followed this format, was a screenshot of a post from freelance journalist Deanna Schwartz. The journalist has written articles for the Boston Globe, Times of Israel and Teen Vogue.

The post that the “Ls Post” account shared was a Schwartz post sharing a new article for Lily News, titled “I'm going to be 21 and haven't had my first kiss yet. I blame the pandemic.”

The account did not add any comments to the tweet or encourage any user to harass Schwartz. However, the author still claims to have received "sexual harassment and antisemitism" as a result of the post. Now the twitter account @deannaschwartzz belonging to Deanna Schwartz, is locked possibly due to a polemic.

Responding to Schwartz via DM, the Ls Posting account said “none of my posts target harassment and I am not responsible for anything this account does not tweet. Never had a dialogue [with] a journalist on this account and don't plan to. Have a nice day."

Shortly after, the account was blacklisted. Several media outlets have reached out to Twitter for comment on the move, but there has been no official response.

Meanwhile on the Twitter page, several posts from other accounts or users have the tone of regretting Twitter's efforts to block the popular Journalist Posting They L's account. The defense usually attributes this to an attempt to silence freedom of expression.