Over the last 48 hours, Twitter has exploded with angry commentary directed at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) after the organization actively attempted to censor what was posted on twitter during their annual sessions this past weekend in San Diego. The fiasco began when an attendee posted a picture of slides on twitter—in an attempt to “LIVE Tweet” during a session on the recommended #ADA2017 Hashtag. The @AmDiaAsso twitter feed then began to post tweets instructing individual attendees to take down specific tweets that involved photography. In fact, the ADA twitter feed at one point was dominated by their repeated requests for attendees to delete tweets. Quickly, the censorship became the focus of the hashtag—not the science. Comparisons to George Orwell's “thought police” from his novel 1984 were made on social media platforms including Twitter.
