Tech

Twitter Shutdown Of Vine Being Called A ‘Hate Crime’ Against Blacks

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Blake Neff Reporter
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Within minutes of Twitter announcing the end of Vine, its short video platform, critics raced to declare the move racist and an attack on non-white Internet users.

Vine, launched in 2013, never became quite as popular as Twitter hoped. So, as part of a broader restructuring that is eliminating 9 percent of the company’s workforce, Twitter announced Thursday that the platform will shut down within a few months; video content is presumably expected to migrate to Twitter.

That’s of course bad news for Vine’s dedicated fans.

Some people went even further and accused Twitter of cavalierly destroying a service of immense value to blacks and other non-white people.

Tracy Clayton of Buzzfeed was particularly incensed, claiming the shutdown was an attack on “creatives of color.”

User Alexandra Erin went a step further, saying that Twitter’s decision to cut Vine was an explicit choice to choose racists and “rapists” over non-whites.

Rembert Brown of New York Magazine even called the shutdown a “hate crime.”

Wesley Lowery of The Washington Post argued that Vine was a critical tool for reporting on-the-ground events in Ferguson, Mo., after the shooting death of Michael Brown.

Jason Scott, founder of the Internet archive site Textfiles.com, said that the masses should fight against the loss of Vine’s “unfiltered” community.

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